Fallujah Warned; 6 GIs Die

[David]

AP


Iraq's interim prime minister warned Wednesday that U.S. and Iraqi forces will launch military operations in the main insurgent stronghold Fallujah if residents do not hand over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group has kidnapped and beheaded numerous foreigners.

Roadside bombings killed six American soldiers, the U.S. command said, as U.S. and Iraqi troops stepped up pressure on Sunni insurgents before this week's start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The U.S. dead included two soldiers killed Wednesday in the northern city of Mosul when a suicide driver plowed into a U.S. convoy and blew up his car, the U.S. military said. The other were four killed in separate attacks late Tuesday and early Wednesday in Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

At least 1,078 U.S. troops have died since the war began.

During Wednesday's operations, U.S. troops swept into the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi and joined Iraqi police and National Guardsmen in raids in Baqouba after a day of fierce clashes in militant enclaves stretching from the gates of Baghdad to the Syrian border. Some of the sharpest exchanges took place in Hit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.

In other developments:


Coalition personnel mounted two operations last month to rescue members of a group of three hostages held in Iraq, but they didn't find them, a U.S. government official said Tuesday.


Prime Minister Tony Blair vigorously denied misrepresenting pre-war intelligence on Iraqi weapons and rejected growing demands in Parliament that he apologize for misleading his country.


Investigators in Iraq have uncovered a mass grave holding more than 100 bodies.


Saddam Hussein underwent surgery about two weeks ago to repair a hernia and has made a full recovery, a U.S. official said Wednesday.


Iraq's persistent insurgency has slowed reconstruction work and driven up security costs for hundreds of projects in the country, a U.S. official involved with the efforts said Wednesday.


Iraq's deputy leader pleaded with donors Wednesday to fulfill their promises of aid to help rebuild his war-ravaged nation.


A senior Iraqi official on Wednesday played down concerns about the reported disappearance from Iraq's nuclear facilities of high-precision equipment that could be used to make weapons, saying all sites under the interim government's control have been secured.


Two Lebanese hostages have been released after more than three weeks in captivity in Iraq, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

Last year, insurgents sharply increased their attacks against U.S. and coalition forces during Ramadan, expected to start at week's end. Extremists believe they win a special place in paradise if they die in a jihad during Ramadan.

More than 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops launched two simultaneous raids Wednesday around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, to clear the area of insurgents.

The city has been relatively peaceful in recent months, but U.S. commanders noted there was an upswing in insurgent activity during last year's Ramadan in Diayala province.

In Ramadi, U.S. troops sealed off key streets and searched buildings after days of clashes, residents reported.

On Tuesday, Iraqi government soldiers supported by U.S. Marine and Army units raided seven mosques in Ramadi, detaining four people and seizing bomb-making materials and pro-insurgent literature, the military said.

A leading Sunni Muslim group protested the raids. The U.S. command Iraqi ? not U.S. ? troops entered the mosques, and accused the militants of using the sacred places for military purposes.

In the north, Iraqi soldiers patrolling Tal Afar on Tuesday detained 18 suspected militants, while a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation in Mosul netted five suspected rebels wanted for mortar attacks on military bases and "intimidating local civilians," the military said in a statement. Two more suspects were arrested southeast of Samarra, the statement said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have used a mix of diplomacy and pressure to try to suppress Iraq's mounting insurgency in time to hold nationwide elections in January.

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's government has been negotiating with representatives from Fallujah to restore control of the city, which is controlled by extremist clerics and their armed followers. Fallujah is also believed to be the base for al-Zarqawi's feared Tawhid and Jihad group.

On Wednesday, Allawi told the Iraqi National Council that if the people of the rebellious city do not hand over al-Zarqawi and his followers, "we will carry out operations in Fallujah."

Allawi also warned that the more the U.S. and Iraqi forces step up pressure against the insurgents, the more "they will try to escalate the attacks."

Shootings, mortar and rocket attacks, bombings and kidnappings have slowed the pace of reconstruction work and forced the coalition to shift money from other projects to security.

Despite a "significant drop" in the number of attacks against convoys, facilities and personnel in the last week, "we're looking again at minimization of the coalition footprint ... at the projects," said a coalition official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Only $1.2 billion has been spent out of the $18.4 billion approved by Congress for Iraq reconstruction in 2004.

At the same time, aid from countries other than the United States has been slow in coming. Of $13.6 billion in Iraqi aid pledged by 37 countries a year ago, less than $1 billion has materialized.

Joint U.S.-U.N. estimates have predicted that another $55 billion is needed for the next four years.

At the 55-nation donors' conference that opened Wednesday in Tokyo, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged the slow pace of reconstruction spending.

"It took longer than necessary to get our act together prior to turning over sovereignty," he said. But he added: "It's not a complete void. We have other money going in."

Iraqi interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh pleaded for donors to make good on their pledges.

"Development and stability in Iraq cannot be driven through the barrels of guns," Saleh said in an impassioned speech to open the two-day conference. "Assistance and aid in the short term is the key to destroying the causes of terrorism."