Iraq: US forces struck at targets near Baghdad airport yesterday evening and attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets carried out raids elsewhere in Iraq in operations to root out guerrillas and destroy their hideouts.
Despite the growing US toll - a soldier was reported killed and two were wounded in an attack near Baghdad yesterday - US officials vowed that troops would stay until they had defeated insurgents fighting on seven months after Saddam Hussein's fall.
On Thursday, two US soldiers were killed north of Baghdad in a bomb attack, and a civilian contractor was also killed.
A spokesman for the 1st Armoured Division said that US forces hit five targets around Baghdad with mortar fire yesterday evening in the third successive night of "Operation Iron Hammer", an American drive to attack guerrilla positions.
Witnesses reported several explosions around the airport as US planes and helicopters flew overhead. The tougher US tactics follow mortar and rocket attacks on the headquarters of the US-led administration in Baghdad and a bloody few weeks in which 18 Italians and dozens of American soldiers have been killed.
A US official in Baghdad said yesterday that the Iraqis could now expect a quicker transfer of power.
Meanwhile, the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, denied that Washington and its allies were in trouble. "There is no decision to pull out early. Indeed quite the contrary. We will stay there as long as necessary," Mr Rumsfeld told US troops in Guam.
Arriving later in Japan, which is having second thoughts about sending troops in the wake of Wednesday's bomb attack on an Italian base, Mr Rumsfeld met Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He is also due in South Korea, which is reviewing its offer of troops.
Mr Rumsfeld said that the initial plan had been to transfer sovereignty after a new Iraqi constitution was ratified and elections were held, but the administration was considering ways to transfer some responsibility sooner.
President Bush said on Thursday that he wanted to "encourage the Iraqis to assume more responsibility".
In Thursday's attack on occupation troops, a bomb detonated as a US convoy drove through northern Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding three, the US army said.
Near Tikrit, a US Apache helicopter spotted and killed seven Iraqi insurgents late on Thursday as they prepared to fire rockets at a US military camp, a US army spokeswoman said.
Also on Thursday night, near the Syrian border, F-16 fighter jets destroyed an isolated three-storey building used by "terrorists" as a staging area for attacks.
In the southern town of Nassiriya, Italian divers were scouring the Euphrates river for evidence after the blast which devastated the Italian base nearby, killing 27 people. - (Reuters)