Iraqis take fight to heart of US occupation

The heart of the American occupation of Iraq came under attack in Baghdad tonight when mortars exploded inside a former presidential palace now used as the coalition headquarters.

It was the second successive night that huge explosions rocked the Iraqi capital.

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jim Cassella said four people had been injured in tonight's attacks.

He said it was not immediately clear whether the victims were military or civilian personnel or whether they were Americans.

Cassella said there appeared to have been three explosions. Three of the injured were taken to a hospital and one was treated at the scene, Cassella said.

Iraqi police said two of the rounds exploded in the US controlled “green zone,” a one mile square area along the western bank of the Tigris where the coalition headquarters is located.

The attack was the second against American compounds in Baghdad in as many days and underscored the precarious security situation in the city. .

The deteriorating security situation has prompted the UN, the Red Cross and other international agencies to reduce its foreign staff.

Spain, one of America’s closest allies in Iraq, today became the latest to pull out.

It said it was withdrawing most of its diplomats from Baghdad because of deteriorating security.

In other developments:

:: A roadside bomb killed a US soldier and injured two others in Baghdad today.

:: A hotel housing US troops in the northern city of Mosul came under attack from rocket propelled grenades, but there were no casualties.

:: In the same city, gunmen killed a Christian judge near his home.

:: Iraq’s interim authority called on the US to provide a greater role for Iraqis in the defence of their country, saying they were better able than Americans to combat the resistance.

After months of attacks and ambushes on US soldiers, insurgents have begun targeting diplomatic and humanitarian facilities – mainly with vehicle bombs and suicide attackers.

Announcing the diplomatic withdrawal, Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said: “We have taken staff out of Baghdad temporarily given that it is a very complicated moment.”

All but four of the 29 embassy staff are to be moved to Jordan. Spain has about 1,300 soldiers in Iraq.

Spain became the third coalition member to withdraw diplomats from Iraq due to stepped up insurgent attacks.

Last month, Bulgaria and the Netherlands moved their diplomats to Jordan, also citing worsening security.

Judge Ismail Youssefin was the second Iraqi judge to be assassinated in as many days.

On Monday, Judge Muhan Jabr al-Shuweily, who was investigating members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, was abducted and murdered in the southern city Najaf.

Elsewhere, insurgents today ambushed a US patrol with RPGs in the town of Khaldiyah, in the volatile Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad. There were no reports of casualties.

The Arabic satellite TV station Al-Jazeera reported an ambush near Samara north of the capital and broadcast pictures of cheering Iraqis displaying American ammunition as a truck burned in the background.

The Bush administration has urged other countries to send troops to Iraq to relieve the burden on American soldiers.

Turkey agreed last month to send soldiers but the move was stalled by widespread opposition, including from pro-US Kurds in the north.

The Turkish ambassador in Washington said today that his country will not send troops into Iraq without an invitation from the Iraqi Governing Council.

Ambassador Osman Faruk Logolu said the United States must put more pressure on the council to approve the Turkish troops – a move he said the United States appears unwilling to make.