Likely withdrawal from al-Ramadai, raids on Baghdad, Baqouba Samarah, Tikrit

The American forces yesterday continued a fierce campaign against areas where its forces are being exposed to attacks by Iraqi resistance, while it seemed that al-Ramadi will be the first city to be evacuated by the occupation forces and handed over the security responsibilities to an Iraqi force.

On the other hand, the special British envoy to Iraq Jeremy Greenstock said in London on Monday that the occupation has to convince the Sunni in Iraq that they have "a political share" in ruling the country so as to be able to "contain deteriorated security situation."

However, several US Congress members criticized what they called "the American haste" in including Iraqis in the new army whose number on November 12 reached 131,000 and thereby exceeding the number of American soldiers who are now deployed in Iraq, totaling 130,000.

Members of the congress questioned how the American forces could recruit more than 60,000 Iraqi in less than 6 weeks, noting that this took place through accelerating the process of selection and annexing new elements to the army without enough training.

Worthy mentioning that the rate of recruitment in the new armed forces reached 10,000 troops weekly in October. On October 1st, the number of these forces was 60,000 while it reached 100,000 by the end of October. After one week it was announced that 18,000 new members were added, and 13,000 troops were added the next week making number of the Iraqi forces on November 12, some 131,000 members.

These Iraqi forces are distributed into 62,000 members in the police, 8500 on the civil defense sector, 12,200 in guarding borders and the customs and 48,000 in protecting public establishments and the infrastructure while the other 700 members constitute the first contingent of the new army.

On the other hand, one American F-16 jet fighter dropped two bombs at sites for the Iraqi resistance near Samarah town to the north of Baghdad. While resistance men fired missiles at an airport used by the Americans in Karkouk city, the Americans announced the death of one American in a vehicle because of the wounds he had in "a friendly fire incident."

Two American soldiers were injured when an explosive went off in al-Musil. The Russian Inter- fax news agency said that one soldier from the Moldavia's military police working within the occupation forces was injured during an attack by the Iraqi resistance.

However, an activist in the Iraqi National Congress which is led by Ahmed Chalabi was killed on Monday and two other wounded by bullets fired from a car at a center which they were manning in Baghdad.

Moreover, an Iraqi oil official said that oil pipelines in northern Iraq was exposed to a new explosion on Monday despite the deployment of additional security forces led by the US. The old oil pipeline is situated 15 Kilometers to northern West of Karkouk.