IRAQ: Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 11 others were wounded yesterday when a bomb was detonated on the road leading to Baghdad's airport.
US soldiers accompanying the Iraqis on the often-attacked airport road said the Americans had just passed a traffic roundabout with the Iraqis behind them when assailants set off the roadside bomb.
"The hardcore terrorists don't care who they kill," said Lt Col Tim Ryan, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment. "These guys are bigger targets than we are now." Insurgents have hammered Iraqi security forces to discourage volunteers from bolstering security forces straining to create stability before the interim government assumes power on June 30th.
Earlier US forces clashed with insurgents in Samarra, striking back with helicopters gunships after guerrillas fired mortars into a residential neighbourhood. US 1st Infantry Division spokesman Major Neal O'Brien said at least four insurgents were killed.
In Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, insurgents fired mortar shells into a residential area, striking a home and killing a husband and wife, Iraqi authorities said.
The US military said an American marine was killed in action on Saturday in Anbar province, which includes Ramadi and Fallujah. A mortar round also injured six police officers and four Iraqis in a separate attack yesterday near the Iraqi Central Bank in the heart of Baghdad.
Struggling to counter the mounting violence, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appealed for international help for his beleaguered forces and said that the government was considering "emergency law" in certain, unspecified regions to bring the situation under control.
Such measures could be imposed on the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah, where an American airstrike levelled a building that US officials said was a suspected safe house for the network of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. At least 16 people were killed in the strike. But a senior officer of the US-backed Fallujah Brigade said rescue operations uncovered only the belongings of women and children.
Meanwhile an Iraqi group has threatened to behead a South Korean hostage if Seoul does not end co-operation with US occupying authorities, a videotape aired on Arabic television station Al Jazeera said.