Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 26 November 2003 — Guerrillas fired rockets at the headquarters of the US-led administration in central Baghdad yesterday and loudspeakers ordered personnel in the compound to take cover as explosions echoed across the Iraqi capital.

“Attack. Take cover. This is not a test,” warned loudspeakers at the compound in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palace complexes. Sirens wailed, flares lit up the night sky and US helicopters clattered overhead.

A spokesman for the US 1st Armored Division which patrols Baghdad said at least two rockets had been fired. One crashed through the roof of an empty apartment building near the coalition compound and another landed near a bus station.

“There are no reports of US soldiers being injured, or of civilian casualties” the spokesman said.

But he said two Iraqi police were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near a Baghdad petrol station.

A top US general said earlier yesterday that tougher US tactics had halved the number of attacks on his forces in Iraq in the past two weeks, but that assaults on Iraqis had surged. Gen. John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, was speaking a day after Iraq’s interim authority submitted a timetable for self-rule and asked the UN Security Council for a new resolution that would end the US-led occupation in June.

Abizaid said US forces had stepped up operations to counter a rise in resistance activity over the past 60 days.

“These offensive actions in the past two weeks have actually driven down attacks on coalition forces...I would say the attacks are down by about half,” he told a news conference. “But unfortunately we have found that attacks against Iraqis have increased,” he added. US administrator Paul Bremer predicted more violence. “We have to anticipate that there will continue to be a level of terrorism in this country in the months ahead,” he said. Security on the ground was intense as troops remained on alert for attacks during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, after weekend killings of US soldiers and two suicide bombings on police stations.

Bremer and the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council unveiled a plan 10 days ago to restore Iraqi sovereignty in June, reversing earlier US insistence that a new constitution and elections should precede any transfer of power.

“The principal reason for this agreement was an effort to reconcile different positions: An Iraqi desire to directly elect delegates to a constitutional convention and the coalition’s desire to give Iraqis sovereignty at an early date,” Bremer said, adding there would be talks with the Governing Council.

“It is our anticipation that the (transitional) Iraqi government...will want to have coalition forces here,” he said.