IRAQ: A US soldier and a policeman were killed in separate attacks in Iraq yesterday as the continuing violence prompted dozens of South Korean contractors to pull out of the country and Bangladesh to close its embassy.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for the US Army in Iraq, said the soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul, which has seen an upsurge in attacks on American troops.
"There was a drive-by shooting by four Iraqis. They shot and killed him," Brig Gen Kimmitt told a news conference.
The shooting brought to 308 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since they invaded in March, including 193 killed since major combat was declared over on May 1st.
On Sunday, a roadside bomb blast in Mosul killed one US soldier and wounded two. Last month guerrillas hit mortars at the headquarters of the 101st Airborne, killing one soldier.
In Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad, a police bomb disposal expert was killed when a tank round planted on a busy street was detonated by remote control, a US military commander in the city said.
Iraqi police and others seen to be working or co-operating with US and allied authorities are increasingly the target of attacks by loyalists to the former regime. Last month 17 policemen were killed in twin bomb blasts in and near Baquba.
While the US military says the overall number of attacks has declined following a recent offensive against guerrillas, November was still the deadliest month for US troops since the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was launched on March 20th.
Earlier yesterday, a group of South Korean electrical workers left Baghdad for Jordan following the killing of two of their colleagues by guerrillas last month.
More than 40 contractors working for South Korea's Ohmu Electric Co Ltd on a project to rebuild Iraq's power infrastructure have left in the past two days.
Bangladesh said it had closed its embassy in Baghdad and evacuated its diplomats to neighbouring Jordan after an e-mail threat to blow up the mission.
In Baghdad, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the president of the US-backed Governing Council, said steps were being taken to set up war crimes tribunals to try former senior members of the regime for crimes against humanity.
"They will be in the hands of Iraqis, with an Iraqi criminal law. It's possible that there could be judges from abroad, the United Nations or other countries, as observers," he said.