A weekend of bloodshed across Iraq saw 14 people working with the US- led coalition killed in five separate attacks and 46 Iraqi militants confirmed dead after ambushes on US convoys in the central Iraqi city of Samarra. Jack Fairweather reports from Baghdad
Lieut Col William MacDonald said the Iraqis were killed yesterday as the fourth infantry division "repelled multiple ambush attacks". Some of the attackers wore the attire of Fedayeen, a militia formed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, he said.
The deaths of two South Koreans, seven Spaniards, two Japanese and a Colombian, as well as two US soldiers, completed the bloodiest month for the occupying forces since the US invasion to oust Saddam in March. Coalition casualties total 106 for November.
Soldiers and civilians from more than a dozen allied nations have now been killed in Iraq.
The two South Koreans, believed to be electricity workers, were killed yesterday when their convoy was shot at outside Saddam's home town of Tikrit, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said. Two others were wounded. On Saturday, seven Spanish intelligence agents, two Japanese diplomats and a Colombian civilian working for the US armed forces were killed. They died on the same highway as the two Japanese diplomats who were gunned down by the roadside at a food stall, while a Colombian contractor was shot in an ambush on his convoy near Balad, north of Baghdad.
Officials in Baghdad fear the success of the insurgents over the weekend will lead to a surge in "opportunistic attacks" directed at civilian administrators and contractors.
The Japanese, South Korean and Spanish governments all face serious questions over their desire to help the United States in the face of mounting violence.
The South Korean President, Roh Moo-hyun, has committed the country to sending more troops to Iraq in addition to 675 medics and military engineers deployed since May. However, he has yet to make the politically sensitive decision whether to include combat forces in the expected 3,000-strong contingent.
In Spain, the Prime Minister, Mr José María Aznar, was defiant despite calls for him to recall the 1,300 Spanish troops helping to control south-central Iraq.
"We are where we have to be and we will not leave the victims of terrorism, here or there, to their fate," said Mr Aznar, who defied public opinion to back President Bush. "We will fulfil our commitments with loyalty and serenity."
The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, said yesterday that Japan, which is still reviewing plans to send some forces, would not be deterred. Japan's plans to send troops were put on hold earlier this month after a suicide attack on an Italian base in Nasuriya killed 19 Italians and nine Iraqis in the deadliest attack so far on multinational forces in Iraq.