Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari yesterday urged US-led coalition forces not to "cut and run" from the strife-torn country as he paid a surprise visit to Australia.
The US, Britain and Australia should stand by Iraq during "these critical times," Zebari told a joint news conference with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
"We all see the pressures building up in Washington in London, in Europe, here, but I think this is not a time to cut and run," he said.
"I think this is the time to stand with the people who you helped to liberate and to assist," he said.
Zebari and Downer both spoke of Britain's future role in Iraq amid reports that Washington fears British Prime Minister Tony Blair's successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, could announce plans to withdraw troops soon after he takes office on June 27.
"I haven't seen anything coming out of Britain that differentiates Gordon Brown's position from that of Tony Blair," Downer said. "Gordon Brown re-affirmed his commitment to the democratic government in Iraq and to ensuring Iraq is a successful country."
Zebari appeared less confident of Brown's appetite for the war.
"We understand the realities of British politics and the forthcoming prime minister Brown has also been supportive of Iraqi democracy, of the mission," he said. "And I believe it's very important there shouldn't be weaknesses within the coalition because these are crucial times."
Zebari said the number of foreign troops killed in Iraq had increased recently "because they are engaging the enemy in their neighborhoods. They are not sitting back in their barracks."
The coalition troops were making real progress and many neighborhoods in Baghdad had been brought under control, he said.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb attack on a group of Iraqi soldiers killed three of the soldiers and injured two others in western Baghdad yesterday, the army said.
The attack occurred at 10:15am in the Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Adil in the capital, when a bomb exploded next to an army patrol.
In Baqubah, gunmen opened fire on a minibus yesterday, killing seven people before setting the vehicle on fire and incinerating the bodies, a local hospital official said.
"When the ambulances arrived at the scene they found seven bodies and four wounded people," said Mohammed Abdullah, an official in the main hospital in Baqubah, adding that one of the dead was a child and all four of the wounded were women.
A few hours later two more were killed and 15 were wounded when three mortars crashed outside a bank where people were lined up to collect their salaries, police Lieutenant Ahmed Ali said.
A newspaper reporter was kidnapped while leaving a relative's house in Baghdad and found dead several hours later, his newspaper reported yesterday.
The attack on Ali Khalil, 22, occurred on Sunday, according to the Azzaman newspaper.
The attack came three days after two Iraqi journalists working for ABC News were ambushed and killed on their way home from work.
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