Worldandnation: An Iraqi tale

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's daily barrage of attacks killed two more American soldiers and an Iraqi employee of a U.N.-affiliated relief agency Sunday, while thousands of followers of a hardline Shiite Muslim cleric staged an anti-American protest in Najaf.

Also, the top commander of American and international troops in Iraq said Sunday that he is establishing an Iraqi "civil defense force," or armed militia, of about 6,800 men to help American forces combat the violence and sabotage that he and others believe is being spearheaded by remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said he will establish eight battalions of armed Iraqi militiamen, each with about 850 men. They will be trained by conventional U.S. forces - a job usually handled by American special operations forces - and are expected to be ready to begin operating within 45 days, he said.

The two U.S. soldiers died when rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire struck their convoy early Sunday near Tal Afar, a town west of the northern city of Mosul, said military spokesman Cpl. Todd Pruden. Another soldier was injured. All the victims were from the 101st Airborne Division.

The deaths brought to 151 the number of U.S. troops killed in action since the March 20 start of war, four more than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Also Sunday, a U.S. soldier was killed and two others injured when their vehicle crashed and flipped over near Baghdad International Airport, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

On Sunday, the top U.S. official in Iraq said he believes Hussein is still alive and in the country, though not orchestrating attacks on American troops.

Paul Bremer, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said there was no evidence of central control in the assaults, calling them "highly professional but very small, sort of squad-level attacks, five or six people at a time attacking us."

Meanwhile, in Najaf, thousands of followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr set out from the Imam Ali shrine on a 6-mile march to U.S. headquarters, shouting slogans against the new, U.S.-sanctioned Iraqi Governing Council and the Americans.

U.S. troops prevented the demonstrators from entering the headquarters and soldiers barricaded the building with Humvees. The crowd dispersed after clerics read out an appeal by Sadr to go home.

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