Two US soldiers were killed and four wounded in Iraq yesterday in a spate of guerrilla attacks which also left at least two Iraqis dead, according to the US military and witnesses.
Hours after the Americans were killed in the troubled capital, the US administrator hailed the first session of the Baghdad city council as a major step towards democracy in Iraq.
The new council can only offer suggestions to US-controlled bodies running Baghdad.
The latest violence, which also left four US soldiers and an Iraqi wounded, indicated American occupation forces were facing guerrilla warfare in Sunni Muslim central Iraq, once the cradle of support for Saddam Hussein. The fatalities brought to 29 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1st.
Meanwhile, the Central Intelligence Agency said yesterday it believed Saddam's voice was on the recently-released audiotape that warned of more bloodshed in Iraq and urged Iraqis to support resistance to US forces.
"The CIA's assessment, after a technical analysis of the tape, is that it is most likely his voice," said the CIA spokesman, Mr Bill Harlow.
The US administrator in Baghdad, Mr Paul Bremer, praised Baghdad's 37 new councillors, chosen at neighbourhood meetings across the city, for taking up their posts when other Iraqis co-operating with the occupying authorities have been subjected to attacks.
Seven recruits to a new US-backed police force were killed in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Saturday by attackers who set off a remote-controlled bomb.
A US military spokesman said one soldier was killed while a patrol was pursuing gunmen in the Azamiyah district of Baghdad late on Sunday. An Iraqi was also killed and another wounded. The second US soldier was killed early yesterday when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle in the district of Kadhimiya.
Meanwhile, the chief of Turkey's armed forces said the arrest of Turkish troops by US forces in Iraq had caused a crisis in relations between the two NATO armed forces. "It turned into a major crisis of trust between the Turkish and US armed forces and became a crisis," chief of general staff Hilmi Ozkok said in Ankara.
The 11 Turkish soldiers were returned yesterday to their offices in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya. - (Reuters)