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Iraq

U.S. may shield envoys in Iraq

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military is considering offering protection to foreign diplomats in Baghdad after al-Qaida agents killed three Arab envoys this month, the American ambassador said Thursday.

"Coalition forces ... are planning to look at this problem and see what could be done to fix the security for the diplomats," Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters. "It's very important for foreign diplomats who come here to have a sense of security."

He spoke a day after Iraq's most feared terrorist group announced it killed two Algerian diplomats - including the country's chief envoy in Iraq - because of their government's ties to the United States and its crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Chief envoy Ali Belaroussi and diplomat Azzedine Belkadi were kidnapped outside their embassy in Baghdad. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility.

The group - headed by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - also claimed responsibility for the kidnap-slaying of Egypt's top envoy and the attempted abduction of two other Muslim diplomats in a campaign to undercut support for the new Iraqi government within the Arab and Muslim world.

Khalilzad said no final decision had been made on offering protection, and some Arab diplomats may fear the presence of U.S. forces around diplomatic missions could actually draw insurgent attacks.

"We have not accepted taking on the mission at this point," Khalilzad said. "But what we've agreed is, we will look at this, see what the problem is, and what the options might be for assisting."

It was not clear exactly how many diplomats the U.S. might be called on to protect. There are more than 40 foreign missions and some 500 diplomats in Iraq.

Both the Algerians and the Egyptian diplomat had no personal bodyguards. Belaroussi told colleagues he felt no need for security because of Algeria's good relations with the Iraqi people and its opposition to the invasion.

Also Thursday, the U.S. military announced that two American soldiers were killed and one was wounded in a roadside bombing the day before in Baghdad.

Another American soldier died Wednesday in a nonhostile vehicle accident in central Iraq, the U.S. military said. That brought to eight the number of Americans killed in Iraq since Sunday night, when four members of the Georgia National Guard died in a bombing in Baghdad.

As of Wednesday, at least 1,782 members of the U.S. military had died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,376 died as a result of hostile action.

Also Thursday, U.S. Marine jets dropped laser-guided bombs and other ordnance on insurgent positions northwest of Baghdad, killing nine insurgents, including five Syrians, the U.S. military said.

Elsewhere, insurgents launched coordinated attacks against four Iraqi army checkpoints along a road between Baqubah and Baghdad, killing six Iraqi soldiers, police said. At least eight people - three soldiers, four policemen and one civilian - were wounded as fighting continued into late afternoon.

In Baghdad, a train carrying fuel exploded into flames when it was hit by a bomb, killing two people and wounding six, police said. The bomb appeared aimed at a nearby police commando checkpoint, police said. An Internet posting in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility.

WASHINGTON - Thirty percent of U.S. troops surveyed have developed stress-related mental health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq war, the Army's surgeon general said Thursday.

The survey of 1,000 troops found problems including anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and an inability to concentrate, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and other military medical officials. A smaller number of troops, often with more severe symptoms, were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.

[Last modified July 29, 2005, 00:52:10]