IRAQ: Coalition forces yesterday set up a series of checkpoints inside and outside Baghdad as Iraq's new leaders admitted they were considering imposing a state of emergency in a desperate effort to tackle the rising tide of violence.
The extra security was introduced amid mounting fears that insurgents, responsible for a series of attacks that killed 100 people on Thursday, are trying to get into the capital to disrupt the official handover of power to an Iraqi government due on Wednesday.
Yesterday, American troops fought gunmen in the troubled city of Falluja, and launched another airstrike against insurgent targets, killing as many as 25 people. Another roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad, killing an Iraqi policeman.
The continued bloodshed has prompted Iraq's new ministers to consider plans to significantly tighten security once they take power.
Yesterday the defence minister, Hazem Sha'alan, who is also a tribal sheikh, said: "We have an urgent plan for Baghdad and also for a state of emergency in other provinces.
"It is the people who want stronger measures in Iraq. We have got to build democracy and building democracy requires patience."
He blamed the recent violence on "foreign alien forces", adding: "The time has come for a duel and, with God's help, it will be a great duel, a great contest and the Iraqi people will ultimately be victorious." Emergency laws may include curfews and detentions in an effort to curb the violence.
In Mosul on Thursday after a series of bomb blasts killed dozens of people, police blocked several main roads, imposed a night curfew and told residents to stay indoors.
"Announcing emergency laws or martial law depends on the nature of the situation. In normal situations, there is clearly no need for that," Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of a powerful Shia party and a newly-appointed vice president of Iraq, said.
"But in cases of excess challenges, emergency laws have their place," he said. Any emergency laws imposed would fall within a "democratic framework that respects the rights of Iraqis".
Even after the handover of power to an Iraqi government, the US military will retain overall control of security and any use of martial law would have to be endorsed by the US.
US tanks and armoured vehicles were yesterday reported to be moving along the main highway close to Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad, firing at targets in the city. At least seven people have been killed in Falluja in the past two days, hospital officials said.
The US military said its airstrike in Falluja yesterday hit a "safe house" in the south-east of the city which was used by supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who the US has blamed for orchestrating the Iraqi resistance.
Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for some of the most brutal fighting in the attacks on Thursday.
"Wherever and whenever we find elements of the Zarqawi network, we will attack them," said Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military.
Alongside the violence this week, fighters loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr agreed to lay down their arms in Baghdad.
For nearly three months they have fought sporadically against US forces in the eastern slums of Sadr City until Thursday when they declared a ceasefire.
Their new approach came after the cleric withdrew his gunmen from the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. He now appears to be hoping to build a political career instead.
Two US Marines were killed and one wounded when their patrol was ambushed during an operation against Islamic militants in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said on Friday.
The Marines were killed in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, on Thursday evening, said military spokeswoman Master Sgt Cindy Beam.
She said the wounded Marine was hurt by gunfire, but she said she did not know how the two were killed.
The attack happened in a mountainous district called Naray close to the border with Pakistan, residents there said. They said they saw the bodies of the two Marines and they appeared to have been shot with AK-47 assault rifles.