Iraq

11 U.S. service members die in 4 attacks

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Eleven U.S. service members in Iraq were killed in four separate attacks by insurgents late Saturday evening and Sunday, including six who died in a mortar attack, the military reported.

Meanwhile, the former Iraqi general chosen to head a new force in Fallujah denied there were any foreign fighters in the city, calling into question his commitment to American military objectives, and a top U.S. commander said later the general would not be allowed to lead the armed men he has already assembled.

It was a bloody day for coalition forces in Iraq. The eleven soldiers killed raised the U.S. death toll to 151 since a wave of violence began April 1. At least 753 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

Six U.S. service members were killed and 30 were wounded in a mortar attack near the western city of Ramadi.

Another U.S. soldier was killed and 10 were wounded in a bomb and small arms attack on a coalition base near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Overnight, Shiite militiamen attacked a U.S. convoy with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades near the southern city of Amarah, 180 miles south of Baghdad. Two soldiers were killed, the military said. Through the night and into Sunday morning, Iraqis set fire to the long line of abandoned vehicles, jumping on the hoods and beating them with sticks.

An attack in northwest Baghdad killed two other soldiers and wounded two Iraqi security officers and another American, the military said.

U.S. troops also exchanged gunfire Sunday near Najaf with militiamen loyal to radical Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr, who is charged in the murder of a rival cleric last year.

In the southern city of Basra, a mortar shell exploded late Sunday near the headquarters of the traffic police, killing one civilian, police Lt. Col. Ali Kadhim said. Minutes later, gunmen killed a policeman at a checkpoint, he said. It was unclear if the attacks were coordinated.

In Fallujah, Jassim Mohammed Saleh, the former Iraqi major general entrusted by the Marines with forming a new security force in the violence-wracked city, said in an interview with Reuters news service, "There are no foreign fighters in Fallujah." He also insisted that onetime members of former President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party should be allowed to return to the government or the army, saying they were "capable of administering the country in times of crisis."

Saleh's comments contradict U.S. intelligence reports - and his orders from Marine commanders. A senior U.S. military official said there were about 200 foreign fighters inside the city as of Friday. The top Marine commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway, said at a news conference Saturday that Saleh and his deputies "understand our view that these people must be killed or captured."

At the time, Conway said Saleh and his lieutenants "have not flinched."

Although a Marine spokesman said Saleh's force had expanded to 600 soldiers on Sunday - double the size it was a day earlier - it remained unclear exactly where those troops were. Several men who claimed to be participants told reporters who traveled into the city that they were still waiting for uniforms and orders. Until they got them, they said, they planned to patrol their neighborhoods in civilian clothes.

As questions mounted about Saleh's performance and his background, Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the former general would not be given command of the new force, named the Fallujah Brigade. "He will not be their leader," Myers said on ABC's This Week program.

Saleh, who is originally from Fallujah but had been living in Baghdad, served as the commanding general of the Iraqi army's 38th Infantry Division before the U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, dissolved the entire Iraqi army almost a year ago. Earlier in his military career, Saleh served in the Republican Guard, an elite branch of the army used at times by Saddam Hussein to suppress internal dissent. It was not immediately clear what rank Saleh held in the Republican Guard.

Conway said Sabawi is "very well respected by the Iraqi general officers" and "demonstrates a level of leadership that tells me he could become that brigade commander."

But Myers, who appeared on three Sunday morning news shows, cautioned that neither of the generals had been approved by the Pentagon.

"They have not been vetted. They have not been placed in command. They are not in charge," Myers said on Fox News Sunday.

Myers said the leadership of the Fallujah Brigade would have to be approved by the U.S. occupation authority in Baghdad and Iraq's interim defense ministry.

- Information from the Washington Post and Associated Press was used in this report.

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