Roadside bomb kills US soldier in Iraq ( 2003-12-08 14:03) (Agencies)
Guerrillas killed a U.S.
soldier with a roadside bomb in northern Iraq on Sunday, and a U.S.
military commander said insurgent attacks might not abate even if American
troops kill or capture Saddam Hussein.
A soldier from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division died and two others in
his unit were wounded when rebels detonated a bomb as a their convoy drove
through the center of Mosul at midday, Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler said.
"I heard an explosion and came running toward the site of the attack and saw
three soldiers, one of them covered with blood," said Bahaa Hussein, a student.
Mosul is 250 miles north of Baghdad.
The top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said attacks could surge
ahead of a July 1 deadline for a transfer of authority from the U.S.-led
coalition to a transitional Iraqi government.
"We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward toward
sovereignty at the end of June," Sanchez said.
"The killing or capturing of Saddam Hussein will have an impact on the level
of violence, but it will not end it," he said. "It won't be the end-all
solution."
"It's a needle in a haystack," he said of the hunt for the ousted Iraqi
leader. "Clearly we haven't found the right haystack ... We are moving under the
assumption that he is still in the country, that he is still operating."
After a daylong trip to Iraq on Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld said he wants senior commanders in Iraq to consider whether the
Pentagon underestimated how many U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces would
be needed before a sovereign Iraqi government takes over next summer.
He said he worried that the current goal of 220,000 Iraqi security forces may
not be able to be increased later if need be.
"I worry that budgets will begin to get committed, and we may not know if we
need more until sometime, for example, in February or March or April," Rumsfeld
said on the flight to Washington, arriving early Sunday. By then, he said, the
money might not be available.
The number of Iraqis now in uniform is now said to be about 140,000, many of
whom were rushed through training programs. Rumsfeld sees the buildup of those
forces as the key to completing the military mission there in the aftermath of
Saddam's deposed dictatorship.
In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, children took a break from a soccer game to
taunt U.S. soldiers on patrol with chants of: "We will give our blood, we will
give our lives for Saddam."
"Saddam is free, he is here, he walks Tikrit in disguise," taunted Mohammad
Ali Mustafa, a 10-year-old boy who cursed the U.S. soldiers. "They are
occupiers, they fire on us. Saddam is our father."
In Baghdad, the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division sent almost 1,500 soldiers
on a sweep through the capital's al-Mansour district, raiding apartment
buildings and detaining 43 people, including a dozen suspected guerrillas. The
raids netted 215 AK-47 automatic rifles, 10 grenades and bomb-making gear.
Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council gave different versions
of progress on a statute that would establish a war-crimes tribunal that could
try Saddam and his top aides.
One member, Mahmoud Othman, said the council had reached agreement on the
statute and planned to send it to the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, on
Monday for his signature. But another, Yonadam Kanna, said negotiations were
continuing.
Near the town of Samarra, some 70 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb derailed
eight of 20 carriages on a train heading from Baghdad to Mosul on Saturday
evening, said Abdel-Nasser Abdel-Rahman, a railway official. There were no
injuries.
Train service between the capital and Mosul will be disrupted for five days,
Abdel-Rahman said. Bottles of water, apparently part of the train's cargo, were
scattered around the derailed carriages.
"We're conducting our investigation, but we think that remnants of the former
regime are behind the attack," policeman Ahmed Waleed said.
The attack occurred on the northern outskirts of Samarra, a town where
guerrillas engaged in heavy fighting a week ago with U.S. soldiers delivering
new Iraqi currency to local banks.