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BAGHDAD - The Washington Post quoted unnamed senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq as it reported that the military is increasingly likely to need a further increase in combat forces to put down remaining areas of resistance in the country.
Convinced that the recent battle for Fallujah has significantly weakened insurgent ranks, commanders in Iraq have devised plans to press the offensive into neighborhoods where rebels have either taken refuge after fleeing Fallujah or were already deeply entrenched.
But the forces available for these intensified operations have become limited by the demands of securing Fallujah and overseeing the massive reconstruction effort there - demands that senior U.S. military officers say are likely to tie up a substantial number of Marines and Army troops for weeks.
The Pentagon took an initial step in this direction last month, ordering about 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours by up to two months.
But over the past week, a closer assessment of the forces needed for the Fallujah recovery effort and future offensive operations revealed a gap in desired troop strength, at least over the next two or three months, the Washington Post reported, quoting unnamed officers.
The officers said the exact number of extra troops needed is still being reviewed but estimated it at the equivalent of several battalions, or about 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq fell to nearly 100,000 last spring before rising to 138,000, where it has stayed since the summer.
Attacks continue around nation
Violence continued to flare Sunday across Iraq.
FALLUJAH: Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent Sunday who opened fire after pretending to be dead. The U.S. military is investigating a Nov. 13 incident in which an NBC videotape showed a Marine shooting a wounded man lying in a Fallujah mosque. Marines could be heard yelling that the man was pretending to be dead.
The storming of Fallujah has heightened tensions throughout Sunni Arab areas, triggering clashes in Mosul, Beiji, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere.
RAMADI: In the city 70 miles west of Baghdad, insurgents ambushed an Iraqi National Guard patrol, killing eight guardsmen and injuring 18 others, police said.
Also, U.S. troops opened fire on a bus carrying Iraqi civilians, killing three people in an incident the U.S. military described as self-defense.
HAQLANIYAH: U.S. forces conducted a raid to capture a "high-value target" associated with Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the city 135 miles northwest of the capital, a U.S. spokesman said Sunday. Six people were detained, although the military did not say whether the target was among them.
Witnesses said U.S. troops raided a Sunni mosque in Haqlaniyah, arresting cleric Douraid Fakhry and detaining dozens of residents in nearby homes. The U.S. military denied that a mosque was raided.
LATIFIYAH: South of Baghdad, a convoy of Iraqi national guard and police was attacked by insurgents armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the U.S. military said. There were several Iraqi casualties.
MOSUL: American soldiers discovered two more bodies, including that of an Iraqi army soldier, near a site where the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers were found a day earlier, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings with Task Force Olympia.
The nine, all shot in the head execution-style, were identified as soldiers based at Kisik, 30 miles west of Mosul. Four decapitated bodies, still unidentified, were found in Mosul on Thursday.
In an Internet statement posted Sunday, Zarqawi's terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed it killed 17 Iraqi National Guardsmen from Kisik. The claim could not be independently verified. Hastings said he had no report of missing Iraqi guardsmen.
BAGHDAD: Four large explosions shook the area near Baghdad's U.S.-guarded Green Zone - a frequent target of insurgent mortars and rockets - after sundown Sunday. There was no word on any damage or casualties.
Allawi's cousin freed
On Sunday, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office announced that his cousin, Ghazi Allawi, 75, has been released by his kidnappers, nearly two weeks after being abducted along with his wife and pregnant daughter-in-law. The prime minister's office had no other details.
The two women were released Nov. 15. Their kidnappers, who identified themselves as the militant group Ansar al-Jihad, threatened to behead them unless all Iraqi detainees were released and the siege of Fallujah halted.
"Saddam will be executed'
One of Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim politicians said he was convinced Saddam Hussein would be executed if an Iraqi court heard his case.
"Absolutely Saddam will be executed," Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told Al-Arabiya television. "He cannot be given amnesty because of all the crimes he has committed."
No trial date has been set for Hussein, who was captured near Tikrit in December.