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US 'will not be deterred'
29/06/2003 11:44 - (SA)
Baghdad - The US military dug its heels in on Sunday, confronting an enemy apparently widening its tactics, with more than 200 US troops now killed in the war to oust Saddam Hussein and the campaign to rebuild Iraq.
The discovery on Saturday of the remains of two US soldiers believed abducted and killed by Fedayeen militia still loyal to the ousted Baathist regime pushed over 200 the US death toll from combat and accidents since war broke out on March 20.
The soldiers' missing Humvee light armoured vehicle had been recovered northwest of Baghdad - in the heartland of Saddam's supporters - while their personal effects were discovered in a house search, the military said on Sunday.
The deaths came as a further blow to US troops in the country. The troops are faced with almost daily shootings and grenade attacks.
"Virtually every day there has been an attack of some form against coalition soldiers," Major William Thurmond said, adding: "There are poeple in Iraq who do not want the coalition to succeed."
"There is definitely a small number of very committed people, former Baathists, who do not have a place in the Iraq that's coming and they have an interest in seeing to it that we have a difficult time doing our mission."
Another senior military official said that Iraq was still being treated as a war zone, despite US President George W Bush declaring major combat operations over almost two months ago on May 1.
"The war is not over. What we do have is Saddam Fedayeen and Baathist leadership out there that is attempting to disrupt the coalition's efforts," he said, while describing them as working in "fragmented, small cells".
"There's a group out there with a common agenda - that is to disrupt coalition efforts and kill coalition soldiers," the official said, adding, "These casualties that we are encountering are not causing us to falter in any way."
Co-operation is 'increasing'
The top US civil official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said in the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Saturday that the attackers were "trying to send a message to Iraqis that the future of Iraq will be worse than the dark days of the past".
But he insisted: "We will not be deterred. We will not allow a small group of former Baathists to turn back the clock on the Iraqi people."
He said co-operation was increasing and that Iraqis were providing information concerning a spate of recent political sabotage attacks that have hit power and water supplies particularly in Baghdad.
"We have received more knocks on our door with people ready to provide tips about the whereabouts of former senior Baathists," Bremer said.
The campaign to snare former regime members has netted 900 former loyalists of the ousted Baath Party regime within the past week, a senior coalition official said on Saturday, asking not to be identified.
He said some of those arrested had been released, but did not specify how many were still being held.
"On the high value targets we are steadily collecting the 55 key regime figures with over 30 collected so far," he said, adding: "There is no doubt in my mind that we will be able to pick up the remainder."
"Every single day we're attacking the former regime leadership and the Baathists ... but the single most important thing would be for us to get at the top regime leadership," the military official said.
"That will lend a tremendous amount of stability to this country," he added, while declining to say how close the military was to netting key remaining regime figures.
Coalition forces launched the Desert Scorpion operation on June 15 to root out armed resistance by loyalists to the former regime. - Sapa-AFP
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