Britain is to head an international force of more than 16 000 troops to enhance security and peacekeeping operations in southern Iraq, it emerged yesterday.
The move, which is expected to be announced in the House of Commons this week, is part of a substantial deployment of extra troops to Iraq and comes as tensions throughout the country continue to rise.
Six US soldiers were injured in Baghdad yesterday and four Iraqis were shot dead in two other incidents in central Baghdad. Meanwhile, feelings were running high in Falluja, where an explosion at a mosque on Monday killed 10 Iraqis.
The attacks on American troops came hours after the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that US forces were not quagmired in a new Vietnam.
The plan for an international peacekeeping force has been pushed by the US which is desperate to take the pressure off its forces in Iraq.
It is also a tacit recognition that British and US forces need reinforcements to maintain order.
Britain already has 11 000 troops in the south of the country. According to British and US defence sources, they will be supplemented by more than 5 000 soldiers from Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, New Zealand and Lithuania.
A second international force, deployed elsewhere in Iraq, is expected to be led by Poland. There were reports yesterday that a third peacekeeping force will be established, possibly led by India.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said yesterday that up to 20 000 foreign troops were ”gearing up” to go to Iraq. The flow of troops would start this month or next and probably finish in September, he said.
”The more that are there, the fewer US troops we have to have … we will fill in with as many international forces as we can, and we will then be able to rotate some of our forces out and give them a rest,” Rumsfeld said.
Twenty-two US and six British soldiers have died since President George Bush declared the end to major combat operations on May 1.
American soldiers were targeted in two attacks yesterday. In Baghdad, three soldiers were wounded in an attack on their Humvee jeep.
Witness Malik Abid Ali (37) who works in a plant shop, said the attack happened near the Muntansiriyah petrol station around 10am. ”There was a long queue for petrol and two Humvee cars passed in the outside lane,” he said. ”Suddenly one exploded.”
In another attack yesterday, a rocket-propelled grenade reportedly hit a US truck in Mahmudiyah, about 20 kilometres south of Baghdad. Australian Lieutenant Gabrielle Turnbull, a spokesperson for the coalition forces, said that the attack injured three US soldiers with the 18th Military Police Brigade.
On Monday, Rumsfeld denied the coalition forces were facing a prolonged guerrilla war. A European diplomat in Baghdad said: ”Mr Rumsfeld may be right in that it’s not an organised guerrilla war here. But with trouble from looters, criminals, terrorists with external backing, certain Shia groups and diehard Ba’athists, the effect might be just the same and it makes the task of normalisation in Iraq that much harder.”
Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, said yesterday that evidence from captured or killed assailants showed professional commandos from Saddam Hussein’s old power structure were behind recent attacks on occupying forces. ”They’re on the losing side of history,” he added.
The majority of attacks on US soldiers have come in the ”Sunni triangle” north and west of Baghdad, where Operation Sidewinder is concentrating. Repeated sweeps in the area have angered the population and complicated the ”hearts and minds” component of the operation.
The explosion late on Monday at a mosque in Falluja, about 55 kilometres west of Baghdad, killed its imam, Sheikh Laith Khalil, and at least nine Iraqi civilians.
Locals blamed a US missile or bomb but American soldiers insisted it was probably caused by explosives hidden at the site.
Captain Tim Ives, of the US 3rd Infantry, said: ”There was no external source to the explosion. The US forces were not in the area when it happened. No aircraft were in the air at the time. The walls of the building had been blown out and the roof collapsed. That is consistent with an explosion from the inside.” An investigation was under way.
Residents near the mosque refused to accept the army’s explanation. Qahtan Adnan al- Kubeisi (33) lives opposite. ”The Americans fired a missile from the air and the blood of the sheikh was shed,” he said as he stepped through the wreckage.
”We are tribal people here. We must take revenge for the deaths of our sons. Until now we didn’t take the path of Jihad. But as they started against us, we will declare jihad against them.” – Guardian Unlimited Â