10 killed as guerrillas storm Iraqi army outpost

IRAQ: Guerrillas stormed an Iraqi army post yesterday, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding 20, as US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld told combat troops their numbers would fall as Iraqi forces were trained to take over

While Mr Rumsfeld made a pre-Christmas visit to a marine base in the former rebel stronghold of Falluja, west of Baghdad, gunmen launched a dawn assault on the roadside outpost near Adhaim, north of the capital, that lasted all morning. Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.

It started, the internet claim said, with a suicide car bomb at a checkpoint. By the end, police said, 10 soldiers were dead and 20 wounded in the bloodiest attack since last week's election. There was no account of casualties among the gunmen. A civilian motorist was killed and another wounded in crossfire.

In the same region, a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed up to 10 people at a packed Shia mosque. In the attack in Balad Ruz, northeast of Baghdad, a bomber strapped with explosives rode his bicycle into the courtyard, the US military said.

Iraqi police had earlier put the death toll from the attack at four and said eight others were wounded.

"The bomber tried entering the mosque but the guards wouldn't let him, so he blew himself up," said Talib Tamimi, the imam of the mosque. He said more than 1,000 worshippers were praying inside when the attack occurred.

Meanwhile, a court in The Hague has jailed a Dutch businessman for 15 years after finding him guilty of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Iraq used to carry out gas attacks, but acquitted him of genocide charges.

The court said Frans van Anraat (63) supplied the raw materials knowing they would be used to make poison gas by Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and used against its own Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988.

"His deliveries facilitated the attacks and constitute a very serious war crime. He cannot counter with the argument that this would have happened even without his contribution," the presiding judge told a packed court.

Yesterday's attacks ended about 10 days of relative calm. The lull had coincided with draconian election security measures and with an informal truce by some Sunni Arab insurgent groups, though not al-Qaeda.

Tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs marched in Baghdad after yesterday's Muslim prayers in protest at provisional poll results confirming the dominance of Shia Islamists.

Two US soldiers were also killed yesterday when a roadside bomb blew up their vehicle in the capital. The incident came as Mr Rumsfeld announced a slight realignment in US forces, citing progress in the training of local security forces.

US combat forces in Iraq would be reduced by two brigades, involving about 7,000 soldiers by early in the new year, while troops involved in training Iraq's military would be increased.

Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said: "We are sending an important message to the Iraqi people that Iraqi security forces are growing . . .that they are able . . . to fill the gap." However, he said setting a deadline for a full withdrawal of US forces would be "premature".

US commanders have said that troop levels should fall in the coming months from a high of about 160,000 for the election - achieved partly by overlapping troops on rotation - to closer to the 138,000 seen previously.

Asked if Washington might want permanent military bases in Iraq, Mr Rumsfeld said only that discussion had so far not been possible in the absence of a fully empowered Iraqi government. - (Reuters)