ugnet_: AMERICAN FORCES ATTACKED 22 TIMES IN A DAY

[Edward Mulindwa]

Three US Dead, Five Wounded In Fresh Attacks news24.com 10-13-3 TIKRIT (AP) -- Saddam Hussein is believed to have been hiding out recently in Tikrit, influencing the anti-American insurgency, the US military said on Monday. Fresh attacks by resistance forces across central Iraq's guerrilla country were reported to have killed three American soldiers and wounded five others. "We have clear indication he has been here recently," Major Troy Smith, a deputy brigade commander, told reporters in Tikrit, the fugitive president's hometown and now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division. "He could be here right now," he said of Saddam. The insurgents' attacks on US occupation forces averaged 22 a day in the past week, the US military reported on Monday in Baghdad. That's an increase of several a day over the pace of some weeks earlier, and has resulted in American deaths at a rate of almost one every two days. The attacks late on Sunday and on Monday, against 4th Infantry Division troops, occurred in Tikrit and at locations north and east of here, according to the US command: At 19:45 on Sunday, one division soldier was killed and another wounded when their Bradley armoured vehicle struck a mine near Beiji, 50km north of here. At 11:15 on Monday, a division convoy travelling near Jalyula, in a desolate area 140km east of Tikrit, was ambushed with a makeshift roadside bomb and small-arms fire. One soldier was killed and two were wounded. Two hours later, in this Tigris River city 145km north of Baghdad, attackers struck a Bradley on patrol with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing one soldier and wounding two others. In another clash typical of Iraq's low-intensity conflict, 101st Airborne Division troops in the northern city of Mosul came under rocket-propelled grenade fire on Monday night and returned fire, killing one of their attackers, the division reported. US soldiers not only targets American forces aren't the only targets. Four British soldiers suffered minor wounds in a pair of roadside explosions on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra on Monday and police reported that the Iraqi governor of Diyala province was slightly injured, along with two bodyguards and a bystander, when his car drove past a roadside bomb 100km north east of Baghdad. Arrests Officials of the American-led occupation said, meanwhile, that arrests had been made in connection with Sunday's car bombing in the heart of Baghdad, where eight people were killed, including one or two suicide bombers, and dozens were wounded when an explosives-packed car detonated short of its target, a hotel housing Americans and officials of Iraq's interim ruling council. No details were given on the arrests. 'Sunni triangle' Six months after toppling the Ba'athist regime, the US-led coalition mostly blames pro-Saddam diehards for the low-level conflict, which is most intense in Tikrit and other parts of the so-called "Sunni triangle." Saddam's Ba'ath party drew its strongest support in this Sunni Muslim-dominated region north and west of Baghdad. Iraqis say resisters probably also include others as well, men resentful of the foreign army's presence and perhaps seeking to avenge kinsmen's deaths at American hands. But the US military says Saddam's Fedayeen militia and his most loyal supporters are apparently financing and organizing the attacks. Smith, executive officer of the 4th Infantry Division's 1st Brigade, said Saddam is believed to be exerting some control over anti-US guerrilla attacks around Tikrit. If he isn't in Tikrit at the moment, he said, "at the least, he is maintaining a strong influence in the area." He didn't elaborate on intelligence information leading the military to conclude Saddam has been in the Tikrit area, but he expressed confidence in the quality of the information. "Where else would he go to?" he said. "He has family and tribal roots here." Some other key regime figures still at large could be in the Tikrit area, Smith said. Of the 55 Iraqis on the coalition's most wanted list, 38 are in custody, 14 are at large and three are either dead or thought to be dead. Those still free "obviously have the money to pay the average poor Iraqi to shoot at coalition forces," Smith said. In other developments: - In Ankara, Turkey's military said that if Turkish peacekeepers are sent to Iraq they would be deployed in the centre of the country. The possible deployment is under discussion between US occupation authorities and Iraq's interim Governing Council, which in principle opposes a Turkish military presence in Iraq. - The coalition delivered crate loads of new Iraqi dinars to Baghdad banks. The new banknotes - minus the old currency's portraits of Saddam - will be released into nationwide circulation on Wednesday. - The Iraqi Governing Council unveiled its 2004 budget, with projected spending of $13.5bn, almost all of which would be covered by an anticipated $12bn in oil revenues. In addition, Iraq's plans rely heavily on $20.3bn in US reconstruction aid proposed by the US administration of President George W Bush. - The US-led coalition said in Baghdad it and the government of Jordan are discussing the training of up to 40 000 new Iraqi police recruits in Jordan over the next 18 months. The Iraqi police force, rebuilt since the war, now numbers about 40 000 officers nationwide. - Iraq's Central Criminal Court convicted a ship's captain and first mate, both Ukrainians, of trying to smuggle Iraqi diesel fuel out of the country in their tanker, the Navstar. They were sentenced to serve seven years in prison and pay fines of $2.4m, equal to three times the fuel's value. Coalition naval forces had intercepted the tanker August 4. copyright Media24 Ltd. All rights reserved. http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1429742,00.html             The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"             Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"