Naseer Al-Nahr • Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 1 August 2003 — Facing a guerrilla campaign that killed another US soldier in a land mine blast yesterday, the US governor of Iraq said democratic elections could be held within a year to end the American occupation. A soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed and three wounded when their armored personnel carrier hit a mine on the road to the US base at Baghdad International Airport.

In another attack in broad daylight in central Baghdad, a man fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US tank — and missed — before sprinting off, locals and US soldiers said. Soldiers later found a grenade launcher lying on the street outside a nearby house and arrested a man inside.

A spokesman said a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division was killed and two wounded by gunmen who attacked an army base northeast of Baghdad just before midnight on Wednesday. Four attackers were wounded when troops returned fire.

Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network is “probably” operating in Iraq, along with other Islamist extremist groups like Ansar Al-Islam, the coalition ground forces commander said yesterday.

“I suspect they’re probably here along with Ansar Al-Islam,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters.

“As long as Americans are here, people will come to attack them — just like they’re trying to attack American interests around the world,” Sanchez said in reference to Al-Qaeda and other hardcore militants.

He said the guerrilla tactics being used against coalition forces in Iraq resembled those taught and employed by Al-Qaeda fighters and the ousted fundamentalist Taleban regime in Afghanistan.

Sanchez also expressed regret over the deaths of civilians who were killed when US soldiers opened fire on at least one car during a raid in the wealthy Baghdad district of Mansour.

“On the issue of the innocent civilians that were killed or injured in that raid ... we established a TCP (traffic control point) to try and isolate the area we were operating with the coalition forces ... either it was a panic or soldiers on the ground made a judgment call” that they were under threat, Sanchez told reporters. The car tried to run past the checkpoint “and that was when they were fired on and killed. We regret that and we’re working through those tactics.”

Washington says it wants to put a democratic Iraqi government in place as soon as possible so it can end an occupation that is taking a heavy toll in lives and money — guerrilla attacks have killed 52 US soldiers since May 1 and Washington is spending some $4 billion on Iraq every month.

“It is not unrealistic to think we could possibly have general elections by mid-2004 and that is when our work here will be done,” civilian administrator Paul Bremer said at the reopening of the looted and fire-ravaged Foreign Ministry.

But as Washington works to build a future government, it has yet to capture the man it invaded Iraq to depose or the banned weapons it said justified military action.

Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a firefight at their hide-out in northern Iraq last week but recent raids have failed to find the fugitive dictator.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has approved a $30 million reward to the person who led US forces to Saddam’s sons, the State Department said yesterday.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said the reward, $15 million for each of the two men, would be the largest ever paid by the United States under its Rewards for Justice program. He declined to name the recipient but media reports have said he is Nawaf Al-Zeidan in whose house the sons took refuge.

Two of Saddam’s three daughters and their nine children took refuge in Amman yesterday, a high-ranking Jordanian official said. “Raghad, Rana and their nine children were hosted by King Abdallah on purely humanitarian grounds,” the official said.

The official did not give any further detail, except that the king received a “letter for mercy” from Saddam’s daughters via “a third party.”

— With input from Agencies