US civilian killed in Iraqi capital

A US Army military policeman stands guard as Iraqi firemen extinguish a blazing shop after an explosion in the center of the Iraqi capital Baghdad yesterday. A truck parked outside a Baghdad shop selling chemicals exploded, killing at least one Iraqi and setting the shop ablaze. PHOTO: REUTERS

A US civilian contractor was killed when his car hit an anti-tank mine on a road north of Baghdad, in another blow to still faltering efforts by the US-led coalition to rebuild war-battered Iraq.

The blast came on Tuesday, as the US warned that the cost of restoring Iraq's oil and gas industry would rise from the latest estimate of around US$1.14 billion amid sabotage and looting.

"Around 1pm an American civilian contractor was killed when his vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device," military spokeswoman Sergeant Amy Abbott said.

Later, three US soldiers and a trio of Iraqi policemen were wounded in a separate rocket-propelled grenade attack, dealing further severe blows to reconstruction efforts in the country.

The civilian fatality in the first incident was identified by Kellogg, Brown and Root, contracted by the US army to help rebuild Iraq's crumbling oil infrastructure, as an employee.

It was not clear if he was targeted by assailants or if he hit the explosive by accident as he drove in a five-man convoy.

It was believed to be the first death of an American civilian in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat there on May 1 after the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The contractor's car hit the bomb near Tikrit, Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad that is the focus of the hunt for the ousted dictator and his supporters by hundreds of US troops.

In an incident west of Baghdad, three US soldiers and three Iraqi police officers were also wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against the police station in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, a correspondent said.

With US army casualties now at 52, killed in a guerrilla war blamed mostly on militants loyal to Saddam, the news of a civilian death further pressured the US administration, criticized by Democratic opponents of Bush seeking points ahead of next year's presidential election.

Outside the casualties, though, medical investigators' news on test results from some 100 cases of pneumonia seen in Iraq since March, with two US soldiers dead from it, was positive in that it had not been caused by anthrax, smallpox or biological agents, Pentagon officials said.

Doctors failed to identify the type of pneumonia, said Colonel Robert DeFraites, an official with the Army surgeon general's office.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sharply questioned whether the US Army needed to be larger despite warnings from top army generals the 480,000-strong force had been "stretched" by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With nearly 150,000 US troops tied down in Iraq for the foreseeable future and 10,000 more in Afghanistan, questions have been raised about US military readiness if faced with a war in North Korea or elsewhere.

Rumsfeld said the Joint Staff was now "re-analyzing" US war plans to determine whether existing US forces were sufficient to continue as at present and yet meet another potential contingency elsewhere.