Iraq

American is seized; Iraqis are beheaded

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Fighting in Iraq could soon escalate

BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman - the second U.S. citizen seized this week in Baghdad - and videotape Wednesday showed the beheadings of three Iraqi National Guardsmen and an Iraqi officer.

Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles south of the capital. A suicide driver detonated his vehicle at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport, injuring nine Iraqis and prompting U.S. troops to close the main route into the city for hours.

U.S. jets were in action again late Wednesday over Fallujah, striking insurgent targets in the northeastern and southern parts of the city where American forces are said to be gearing up for a major assault. Residents reported fierce exchanges of fire after midnight on the edge of the city.

Gunmen killed a senior Oil Ministry official, Hussein Ali al-Fattal, after he left his house Wednesday in the Yarmouk district of western Baghdad, police said. Al-Fattal was the general manager of a state-owned company that distributes petroleum byproducts.

CAIRO - Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden claimed in new video footage broadcast Wednesday that President Bush ignored warnings against invading Iraq because he was dazzled by the country's "black gold" and ended up leading the United States into a quagmire.

The full video, portions of which were broadcast Friday, was posted on a Web site used by Islamic groups Wednesday. The tape show the author of the Sept. 11 attacks accusing Bush of acting out of what he calls "private" interests - an allusion to his oil business past.

Bush ignored the warnings because "the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America," bin Laden says in the portions of the tape that the Arab network Al-Jazeera did not broadcast Friday.

BUDAPEST, Hungary - Hungary will withdraw its 300 noncombat troops from Iraq by the end of March, the country's new prime minister said Wednesday, dealing a blow to the United States' effort to hold the Iraq multinational force together.

The former communist country, which joined the European Union in May, sent the troops as part of the U.S.-led coalition.

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