Insurgents launched new attacks on Thursday against United States occupation troops as the US was reported ready to make major changes to its blueprint for handing over power to a new Iraqi government.
US and Iraqi officials were awaiting an announcement later on Thursday by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on the feasibility of holding legislative elections in Iraq before June 30, as demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and others in the influential Shiite clergy.
President George Bush’s administration hopes Annan will say that elections are impossible by June 30 and also endorse the idea of extending and expanding the US-picked Iraqi governing council so it can take interim control of the country on July 1.
The US is insisting on handing over power at the end of June and transferring considerable responsibility for internal security to the Iraqis. The Bush administration wants to end the occupation well ahead of the November presidential election in the US to minimise Iraq as a campaign issue.
In the latest attacks, a roadside bomb exploded near a US patrol on Thursday morning in Khaldiyah, a Sunni Triangle town about 80km west of Baghdad. Witnesses said US troops sealed off the area, and there was no word on casualties.
Insurgents also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US convoy in the same town on Thursday but the projectile missed, witnesses said.
The attacks in Khaldiyah followed a mortar barrage on Wednesday evening against the US base at Abu Ghraib prison on the western edge of Baghdad. The US command said attackers fired 33 mortars and five rockets between 6.30pm and 6.50pm local time, but only one soldier was slightly injured.
Abu Ghraib was one of Iraq’s most notorious prisons during the rule of Saddam Hussein, who detained, tortured and executed many regime opponents there. The US military uses the prison to house coalition opponents and former regime members.
The latest incidents followed a deadly suicide attack against a Polish-run base south of Baghdad on Wednesday that killed 10 Iraqis and wounded more than 100 people, more than half of them coalition soldiers.
The casualty toll could have been much higher had guards not opened fire and prevented the bombers from entering the camp. One truck exploded under the gunfire and another blew up after hitting a concrete barrier.
The attack in Hillah, the third suicide bombing of security targets in two weeks, was part of a wider effort ”to isolate us from the Iraqi people”, coalition military commander Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez told reporters in Tikrit.
US officials assume Annan will announce that he does not believe early elections as demanded by the Shiite clergy are feasible — echoing the US position. The US had planned to hold 18 regional caucuses throughout Iraq to select members of a new legislature, which would in turn name a government to take power July 1.
However, the Shiite demands and growing opposition among Iraqi leaders to the caucus idea has thrown that plan into doubt.
In Washington, a senior US official said on Wednesday that the Bush administration was considering a major shift in the plan, possibly extending and expanding the US-appointed governing council so it can take temporary control of the country on July 1.
The council would then rule the country until a legislature could be elected, the US official said on condition of anonymity.
Iraqi officials are divided over the issue, with some pushing for early elections and others proposing a national conference to select a leadership.
On Thursday, Ahmad al-Barak, a Shiite council member and coordinator of the Iraqi Bar Association, told reporters after meeting with al-Sistani in Najaf that the Shiites were hoping for an early election but would be willing to wait a few more months if Annan recommends against a vote before June 30.
”I think that elections can be held after five months from now and in that case we have no problem,” al-Barak said. ”Power could be transferred to the Iraqi people through the governing council or any other body which will take the responsibility to make the right preparations for the elections.”
Other Shiites have said that any expansion of the governing council must respect the current alignment of power. The Shiites, believed to make up about 60% of Iraq’s 25-million people, hold 13 of the 25 council seats. — Sapa-AP