IRAQ: A bomb blast in the southern city of Basra yesterday killed four people, as a senior commander in Iraq threatened to use any weapon in his arsenal to tame the flaring violence in the country.
Three rockets hit the fortified area of Baghdad last night where the US-led administration is based. No casualties were reported.
"The most important message is that we're going to get pretty tough," said Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, whose forces have begun air bombing suspected terrorist sites for the first time since the official end of major combat on May 1st. "That's what's necessary to defeat this enemy and we're definitely not shy about doing that," he said.
In Basra one man was killed as he planted a bomb, along with three other Iraqis. Witnesses described how body parts flew across the street in an blast which injured four other Iraqis. British-controlled Basra has in recent months been an island of calm compared with the continuing instability in Baghdad.
But British administrators are worried that attention to violence in central Iraq is leading to a lack of effective governance in the southern half of the country.
Islamic clerics and tribal leaders have begun getting involved in what they perceive to be a power vacuum in Basra.
"There is an operational lack of teeth," said Sir Hilary Synnott, regional co-ordinator for southern Iraq, "We need more human resources." The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in the south has only 20 employees compared to 1,000 in Baghdad. To make matters worse, Spanish and Japanese staff members pulled out following two weeks of rioting in August after a power and fuel shortages.
However, there is a sense at CPA headquarters in Basra that the situation remains under control despite bomb explosions on three consecutive days in the city. Overall attacks against British forces total three to four per month - compared with 30 a day in Central Iraq - and there is a relaxed mood in the city.
Sir Hilary said that the filling of the power vacuum is the first step in the transition of power from coalition forces to the Iraqis.
Meanwhile the violence continued Baghdad earlier where a bomb explosion rocked the Court of Appeal. Six Iraqis including two policemen were injured as US soldiers were bringing prisoners out of the building, police said. Both insurgents and US forces have upped the ante in recent days. Guerrillas have shot down three US helicopters and US warplanes have dropped bombs near the towns of Falluja and Tikrit, two hotbeds of anti-US sentiment.