Iraq War News

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A group calling itself an al Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility Sunday for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, but a U.S. intelligence official said the claim should be taken "with a huge grain of salt."

The videotaped statement took credit for recent attacks on behalf of a previously unknown group, The Armed Islamic Movement of al Qaeda Organization -- Al Fallujah Branch. It also warned Iraqis to expect "a strike that will permanently break the back of America" in the coming days.

The tape warned that the group -- and not followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein -- is behind recent attacks that have killed 31 U.S. troops since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of U.S. Army troops initially scheduled to come home from Iraq during the next two months are being told they will have to stay for an unknown length of time, U.S. Army officials said Monday.

The delay affects 9,000 men in the Army's battle-weary 3rd Infantry Division, which has been in Iraq since the start of the war. A soldier in that division was killed Monday in Baghdad when his convoy was attacked with multiple rocket-propelled grenades.

With security in Iraq still a concern, Army officials said that U.S. troops are still needed in the country.

After weeks of high-level discussions with the United States, India today rejected an American request to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq, saying it would only consider doing so under an "explicit" U.N. mandate.
The announcement following a cabinet-level security meeting this afternoon was a setback to the Pentagon's efforts to bolster its forces in Iraq with contributions from allies. For the past several weeks, India has been seriously considering the deployment to Iraq of a full army division -- about 17,000 men -- which would have been the second-largest foreign contingent in the country after that of the United States.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The new governing council � a U.S.-sanctioned first step toward democracy in postwar Iraq (news - web sites) � voted Monday to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council. Violence against U.S. forces erupted again in the capital, with one soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack. roll over Iraq intelligence contretemps

Meanwhile, thousands of people � including Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds � attended a ceremony in honor of the possible successor to the long-deposed Iraqi throne, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, who greeted well-wishers at his palatial headquarters.

The occasion was Revolution Day, the 45th anniversary of a bloody coup in 1958 when nationalists killed King Faisal II, Iraq's last monarch, provoking years of political unrest. The day had been celebrated under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), but Monday was the first time monarchists in Baghdad were able to gather to mourn the king's assassination.

The U.S. military said Monday it had nabbed six former regime leaders in the latest sweep aimed at snuffing out elements that have attacked and killed American troops.

But violence against U.S. forces erupted again in west Baghdad, where one American soldier was killed and six wounded in the attack by insurgents who fired several rocket-propelled grenades at the military convoy early Monday, said Spc. Giovanni Llorente, a military spokesman.

The military said 226 people had been captured in the sweep, dubbed Operation Ivy Serpent. It said six former regime leaders were among them. None, however, appeared to be part of a list of 55 most wanted fugitives from the old regime. No Iraqi civilians or coalition troops have been killed in the operation.

With the blessing of U.S. administrators, Iraqis inaugurated a broadly representative governing council Sunday dominated by the Shiites once oppressed by Saddam Hussein, planting the seeds of the nation's political future three months after the dictator's ouster. In a deeply symbolic first public action, the council set April 9 -- the day Baghdad fell to U.S. forces -- as a national holiday and banned celebrations on six dates important to Saddam and his Baath Party. And the act was announced, significantly, by a prominent Shiite cleric. Shiites, long oppressed by Saddam, now dominate the 25-member council.

At least one person has been killed and another injured in a blast outside a police station in a suburb of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Witnesses said a headless body was found at the scene after the blast in the western suburb of Maysaloun on Sunday.

The police station is sometimes visited by US soldiers.

A group claiming to be an Iraqi branch of al-Qaida says it - and not Saddam Hussein - is behind the armed resistance against US forces in Iraq.

The claims were made in a four-minute video tape aired on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite television station.

• Population of Iraq under 18:  almost half
• # of children under 5 chronically malnourished:  1 out of 4
• # of children who die before age 5:  1 out of 8
• # of children in Basra known to be malnourished by the World Health Organization:  55,319
• % of cholera cases in Basra affecting children before the war:  50%
• % of cholera cases in Basra affecting children now:  64.3%
• # of children received at one Baghdad hospital within the space of 3 hours with acute diarrhoea:  300
• % increase in diarrhoea since last year:  300
• # of metric tonnes of food the UN has been delivering per hour to Iraq for the past month: 1000
• # of NGO food agents in Fallujah who could not collect food for distribution because of insecurity:  96
• Percent of Baghdad's water and sanitation network lost after the war:  40%
• # of estimated hazardous sites in Baghdad due to cluster bombs and dumped ammunition:  800
• # of children injured by such weapons since the war:  more than 1000
• # of minefields marked in a 6-day period by NGOs in one northern village:  13