IRAQ: Scores of American troops mounted searches through Baghdad yesterday after a sniper shot dead a US soldier on patrol.
The soldier, from the 1st Armoured Division, was shot in the back around midnight as he sat in a Humvee vehicle in north-west Baghdad. Hours earlier, there were two blasts in the capital, a car bomb and a landmine. The attacks highlight the increasing sophistication of guerrilla fighters intent on confronting the US army. Nearly 50 US soldiers have been killed in shootings and accidents since the war ended in April and the assaults appear to be increasing.
Many attacks appear to be inspired by heavy-handed US raids and arrests of hundreds of suspects, most of whom are freed after several days without charge.
Yesterday Mr Paul Bremer, the US official running Iraq, admitted that the failure to capture Saddam Hussein was giving momentum to a low-level but semi-organised resistance movement. "The fact that we haven't been able to prove conclusively that he is dead or capture him alive is an intimidating factor.
"People say we don't want to co-operate because we fear the Baathists will come back." An unnamed senior British official in Baghdad was quoted yesterday as saying the US-led authority was chaotically run, under-resourced and under-staffed.
US troops have rescued 16 thoroughbred Arab racehorses that belonged to Saddam Hussein and returned them to an equestrian centre.
- (additional reporting Guardian service)