Iraqi officials have promised to deploy up to 10,000 extra men to boost security ahead of a Dec. 15 general election after a rebel bombing campaign killed more than 180 people in the past week.
Iraq's foreign minister also urged Japan yesterday to extend its soon-to-expire troop dispatch in support of US-led reconstruction efforts, saying pulling out the troops now would send "the wrong message" to insurgents.
"Because of the sensitivity of the timing and the critical stage we are going through, it is very important for this force to remain committed," Hohshyar Zebari said at a news conference in Tokyo. "Any premature withdrawal will send the wrong message."
Japan has deployed about 600 non-combat troops to the southern Iraqi city of Samawah to purify water and rebuild schools. The mission expires on Dec. 14, but Tokyo hasn't decided whether to renew it.
Zebari, on an international tour with stops in Russia and France, asked for Japan's continued troop support in separate meetings yesterday with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga.
The Japanese government has repeatedly said it is waiting to assess the security situation in Iraq before deciding.
In Baghdad, security officials were preparing for the resumption on Monday of the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who along with seven co-accused faces charges linked to the killing of 148 Shiite villagers.
The first witnesses for the prosecution are expected to be called, and could do so from behind screens or with faces masked to protect their anonymity, according to a US official close to the tribunal.
An increase in violence in Iraq is widely expected before the election, the final stage in Iraq's transition to democracy after the overthrow of Saddam in April 2003.
US forces, meanwhile, have just concluded a three-week operation, code-named Iron Curtain, in western Iraq designed to root out insurgent strongholds near the Syrian border.
US Major General Rick Lynch said earlier this week that since mid-September, US-led forces had killed over 700 rebels and captured around 1,500 suspects in western Iraq. There was no independent confirmation.
Both US and Iraqi officials have warned of the likelihood of increasing violence ahead of the elections.
Sunni rebels, including Jordanian-born Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, have sought to spark sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites in a bid to increase the chaos in the country and discredit the US-backed government.
Some of the bloodiest bomb attacks, including one a week ago against two mosques in Khanaqin on the Iranian border, which killed 80 people, have targeted Shiite civilians.
Several Sunni Arab political and religious leaders have also been gunned down over the past weeks.
Meanwhile, the government warned of a possible new twist in attacks after the Iraqi army announced it had seized a number of booby-trapped children's dolls.
The dolls, found in a car, each contained a grenade or other explosive, an army statement said. The government said two men driving the car had been arrested in the western Baghdad district of Abu Ghraib.
"This is the same type of doll as that handed out on several occasions by US soldiers to children," said government spokesman Leith Kubba, who suggested insurgents were preparing to attack children.
Three US soldiers were killed on Thursday in Iraq as troops celebrated Thanksgiving. Two were killed by a roadside bomb and one when an M-1 Abrams tank rolled over.
The latest deaths brought to at least 2,111 the number of US military personnel killed since the March 2003 invasion, according to a toll based on Pentagon figures.
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