Twin roadside bombings west of Baghdad killed three American soldiers and two Iraqis on Tuesday, and the United Nations chief said he is ready to send a team to Iraq to assess prospects for early elections — if the United States-led coalition can guarantee security.
Elsewhere, US soldiers on Tuesday killed three members of a suspected guerrilla cell linked to Saddam Hussein’s former Baathist regime, the military said.
In a city south of Baghdad, insurgents fired at an Iraqi police post in front of the Polish military base late on Monday, triggering a gunfight that left one policeman dead.
Iraqi witnesses said a roadside bomb exploded next to a military convoy in Khaldiyah in the tense region west of the capital. As reinforcements rushed to the scene, another bomb went off, hitting a second military vehicle, they said.
Three American soldiers were killed and one injured in the ambush, the US military said. Hospital staff said two Iraqis were killed, one of them shot in the stomach as he stood in his office nearby.
In Paris, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the UN will send a team to Iraq to determine whether elections should be held once the US-led coalition authority can guarantee the mission’s safety.
Annan said in a statement that he believes the world body can play ”a constructive role” in helping to break an impasse over the selection of a future interim Iraqi government.
The election issue is at the heart of the dispute between the coalition administration and Iraq’s majority Shiites who are opposed to a US plan for transfer of power that calls for setting up a provisional government through a caucus system. Full elections are not envisaged until 2005.
An influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, says only direct, early elections will satisfy the aspirations of the Shiites, who suffered for decades under Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime.
”The mission will ascertain the views of a broad spectrum of Iraqi society in the search for alternatives that might be developed to move forward to the formation of a provisional government,” Annan’s statement said.
Much of the violence since President George Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1 has been in the Sunni Triangle in central Iraq, home to die-hard Saddam loyalists.
Two Iraqi policemen were shot dead by guerrillas at a checkpoint in Fallujah, 50km west of Baghdad, late on Monday, officials said on Tuesday. Seven policemen were killed in Ramadi, also west of Baghdad, on Sunday.
Three members of a suspected guerrilla cell known as Muhammad’s Army, linked to the former Baathist regime, were killed in Beiji town during raids, north of Saddam’s hometown Tikrit, an army spokesperson, Master Sergeant Robert Cargie, said. He said there were no US casualties.
Muhammad’s Army appears to be an umbrella group for former Iraqi intelligence agents, army and security officials, and Baath Party members, US officials say. It has been linked to several attacks against coalition forces.
In the holy city of Karbala, four men driving a car fired at a police post in front of the Polish base in a hotel, and Polish troops posted nearby joined the Iraqi police in repulsing them with gunfire, said Polish military spokesperson Zbigniew Dabkiewicz in Karbala.
Karbala police spokesperson Rahman Mashawi said the attackers then exchanged fire with Iraqi policemen guarding the city police chief’s house nearby.
One policeman was killed and two were injured in the shooting before two of the attackers were captured, he said.
Poland heads a multinational force in south-central Iraq to which it has contributed 2 400 troops based in Karbala, 120km south of Baghdad. So far, two Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
Meanwhile, four Japanese journalists for Kyodo news agency left the city of Samawah for Baghdad on Monday after receiving reports of a possible attack against them. He declined to give further details. Japan plans to base its troops in Samawah on a humanitarian mission. — Sapa-AP