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US strikes back following bombing of Italian allies

An Italian soldier stands next to the barracks which was destroyed by a car bomb at the headquarters of Italy's paramilitary police in Nassiriya on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

US forces in Iraq, struggling to contain a rash of attacks, raided guerrilla targets in the capital Baghdad after suicide bombers killed 27 people at an Italian military police base in the south.

In Washington, President George W. Bush directed Iraq's US governor, Paul Bremer, to speed the transfer of postwar authority to the Iraqi people, drawing the administration's policy closer to that of its skeptical European allies.

"We are looking at all sorts of ideas and we do want to accelerate the pace of reform," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. "We want to accelerate our work with respect to putting a legal basis under the new Iraqi government."

US forces moved against Iraqi guerrillas in Baghdad on Wednesday evening after a string of night-time attacks on the headquarters of the US-led administration.

They used a Hercules aircraft modified for attack to destroy an abandoned Baghdad warehouse thought to be used by guerrillas, officials said.

Two Iraqis were killed in a US helicopter strike against a van used to launch mortar attacks on the US military, they added.

But the US-led occupiers faced their biggest challenge earlier in the day with a suicide bombing at a military police base on the Euphrates riverfront in Nassiriya, 375km southeast of Baghdad.

The blast tore off the front of a three-storey concrete building, killing 16 Italian police officers and two Italian civilians, Italy's highest military death toll in one incident since World War II.

Khudair al-Hazbar, director of Nassiriya General Hospital, said at least nine Iraqis were killed and more than 80 wounded.

Italian news agency ANSA cited the commander of Italian troops in Nassiriya as saying there were four suicide bombers in two vehicles. Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino blamed fighters loyal to deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

About 2,300 Italian troops are in southern Iraq and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said they would stay.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a CIA report had concluded that Iraqis were increasingly siding with insurgents amid doubts about the US ability to defeat them.

Guerrilla attacks in Iraq have killed at least 155 US soldiers since major combat was declared over on May 1.

Bremer, recalled abruptly to Washington on Tuesday for consultations, said he would return to Baghdad for talks with members of the Iraqi Governing Council on how best to speed up the transfer of power.

He will take with him several ideas, including one in which power would be handed over to an interim government to write a constitution and to an executive to assume sovereign power, much like what was done in postwar Afghanistan.

A similar proposal advocated earlier by France and Germany was rejected by the US.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the US saw the need to be flexible.

"Just like you have to adapt and adjust on the security front to meet the enemy, you need to be willing to adjust and adapt to circumstances on the ground, in terms of reconstruction and in terms of the political front," he said.
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