A roadside bomb exploded near a US patrol Thursday morning in Khaldiyah, a town located some 80 kilometrs west of Baghdad, killing two US soldiers, according to a US military spokesman. Witnesses said US soldiers sealed off the area.
In the meantime, Iraqi fighters also fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at an American convoy in the same town Thursday but the projectile missed, witnesses said.
The attacks in Khaldiyah followed a mortar barrage Wednesday evening against the US base at Abu Ghraib prison on the western edge of the country's capital.
The US command said attackers fired 33 mortars and five rockets between 6:30 p.m. and 6:50 p.m., but only one soldier was slightly injured.
A US military official said, "Coalition forces engaged and killed one enemy as he tried to flee the scene." American troops arrested 55 others at the scene.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ruled out on Thursday holding elections in Iraq before US occupation forces hand over power in June.
"There seems to be general acceptance of the fact that it is not going to be possible to arrange an election between now and the end of June," Annan said in an interview with Thursday’s daily Yomiuri Shimbun.
Elections should be properly organized and the conditions had to be right with security, and the political and legal instruments ready for the elections, the UN boos told the Japanese daily.
"So I think the conclusion then will have to be that elections before the end of June may not be possible, but there will have to be better organized elections later on," Annan conveyed.
Annan said the United Nations would help with economic and political rebuilding in Iraq, but he claimed the security situation must be improved before the world body could step in.
"Once the interim or caretaker government has been established, we will work with them ... But a secure environment has to be created for us to be carry on that," he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
