Four U.S. service members were killed Monday in an ambush in the
Sunni Muslim city of Ramadi, witnesses said. Videotape delivered to
Associated Press Television News showed the four, still in uniform,
lying dead near what appeared to be a walled compound.
U.S. command in Ramadi said four Marines were killed in an ambush in
the last 24 hours, but was unable to confirm that the bodies shown
in the videotape are those of the dead Marines.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded near the northern city of Mosul,
killing four Iraqis and wounding four others. The military said the
Iraqis were employed by a private company working in northern Iraq,
though it didn't say which one.
On Sunday, attackers lying in wait for Iraqi troops detonated a
roadside bomb on the dangerous road leading to Baghdad's airport
Sunday, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding 11. American troops
took the Iraqi wounded to a U.S. aid station and waited while they
were treated.
A mortar round also injured six police and four Iraqis in a separate
attack Sunday near the Iraqi central bank in Baghdad.
An American Marine was killed in a non-combat incident Saturday in
Anbar province, which includes Ramadi and Fallujah, the U.S.
military said Monday.
Meanwhile, a video delivered by terrorists to Arab television
threatened to behead a South Korean worker kidnapped in Iraq, and a
report surfaced that the same kidnappers may be holding as many as
10 other foreigners captive.
In other developments:
- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt says a U.S. airstrike in Fallujah
over the weekend killed key figures in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
network. The strike, in which at least 16 died, had been a
source of controversy.
- A military judge on Monday declared the Abu Ghraib prison a
crime scene and said it cannot be demolished as President Bush
had offered, while defense lawyers in the prisoner abuse case
indicated they want to question Mr. Bush and Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld.
- Britain's Ministry of Defense said Monday that it would
investigate a newspaper's allegations that the bodies of Iraqis
killed in a firefight with British soldiers were mutilated and
showed signs of torture.
- Iraq has resumed oil exports of about 1 million barrels a
day through its southern Basra terminal. Key oil pipelines were
damaged Tuesday and Wednesday in separate sabotage attacks,
halting oil exports.
- Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the Iraqi government
may impose martial law in parts of the country to fight
insurgents after it takes over power from the U.S.-led
occupation on June 30.
- Allawi also said he intends to resurrect aspects of Iraq's
former military, enlarging the overall army while creating
police and paramilitary units focused on controlling riots and
fighting guerrillas.
"They are trying to destroy our country and we are not going to
allow this," Allawi said Sunday.
He added that Coalition Provisional Authority chief L. Paul Bremer's
May 2003 decision to disband the Iraqi army was a mistake. The
fledgling army being trained by the United States is coming under
attack as Allawi's interim government prepares for the handover of
sovereignty.
"We might impose some kind of martial law in some places if
necessary in accordance with the law and in respect to the human
rights and the international law," he said.
Sen. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, expressed concern over the idea, saying Iraqi troops were
not strong enough to enforce it and that U.S. forces could be
dragged into doing so.
"I'm not so crazy about this," Biden said on ABC.
"A government should never lay down an order they can't enforce. I
am positive that Allawi is not in a position to enforce such a law
now, without the United States doing it," he said.
The incoming government is also considering an amnesty for Iraqi
guerrillas who haven't taken direct roles in killings of U.S.-led
occupation forces or Iraqis, Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib
told reporters, offering few details.
In the videotape aired Sunday on the Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera,
the kidnappers identify themselves as belonging to a group led by
Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terrorist who is linked to al Qaeda.
South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il, 33, was kidnapped June 17th near
Fallujah and has been identified as the man in the
terrorist-released video who is heard pleading for his life, and
imploring South Korea to withdraw its troops.
In the tape he screams in English, flailing his arms: "Please, get
out of here," apparently referring to South Korean troops in Iraq,
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I know that your life is
important, but my life is important."
On the videotape, the plea from Kim Sun-il is followed by scenes of
him kneeling in front of three masked men, one of them armed with a
Kalashnikov rifle. The man standing in the middle read a statement
in Arabic:
"Our message to the South Korean government and the Korean people:
We first demand you withdraw your forces from our lands and not send
more of your forces to this land. Otherwise, we will send to you the
head of this Korean, and we will follow it by the heads of your
other soldiers."
The South Korean government, after an emergency cabinet meeting,
announced that it will not withdraw the troops now in Iraq, and will
keep its promise to send 3,000 more - making it the third largest
contributor of troops there, after the U.S. and Britain.
Yonhap news agency reports that the other foreign captives include a
European journalist and "third country" employees for the U.S.-based
contractor Kellogg Brown and Root. Sun-il also worked for a
contractor.
The threat against the South Korean hostage surfaced as authorities
in Saudi Arabia continue to search for the body of American hostage
Paul M. Johnson Jr., beheaded on Friday in Saudi Arabia by
terrorists linked to al Qaeda. |