Rumsfeld visits Baghdad as blasts kill up to 18

11.00am UPDATE

BAGHDAD - Two blasts killed up to 18 people, including an American soldier, in Baghdad on Sunday hours before Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq to gauge efforts to calm violence ahead of January elections.

Rumsfeld told US Marines the United States and its allies in Iraq are engaged in a battle of wills with insurgents.

"They are hoping to cause members of the coalition to decide that the pain and the ugliness and the difficulty of the task is simply too great," he said during a stop at a desert airbase northwest of the capital.

"They know they cannot defeat us militarily. But they are hoping they can win the test of wills. It's a battle of morale. It's a battle of perception," declared Rumsfeld, whose visit comes about three weeks before the US presidential election.

Rumsfeld, who held separate meetings with US commanders, US Ambassador John Negroponte and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Baghdad, arrived just a few hours after two blasts brought more bloodshed to the capital.

The first explosion was near the Oil Ministry and a nearby police academy. Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said 17 people had been killed by a suicide car bomb that may have gone off before it reached the academy, where recruits were lining up.

"Most of the dead were passers-by, including seven women," Jihad said.

An Interior Ministry official said investigators were still trying to decide if the blast was caused by a bomb or a rocket. He put the death toll at six. Police put it at nine.

In eastern Baghdad, the US military said a suicide bomber attacked a US convoy, wounding an American soldier who later died. Two civilians were also wounded. The ministry official said the bomber's charred body was found inside his vehicle.

Insurgents and militants trying to undermine the U.S.-backed government have mounted frequent bomb, rocket and mortar attacks on state buildings and Iraqi security forces.

They have also kidnapped scores of foreigners and Iraqis.

Iraqi kidnappers have released 10 Turkish hostages they had held for over a month after their Turkish employer said it would leave Iraq, Al Jazeera television said on Sunday.

"A statement sent to Al Jazeera said the release came after their Turkish company announced it would stop its activities and completely withdraw from Iraq," the Arab broadcaster said.

Iraqi kidnappers have promised to free two Lebanese men taken hostage west of Baghdad last month, their company's lawyer said on Sunday.

Charbil Karam al-Hajj and Aram Nalbandian disappeared on a road near Falluja on about Sept. 18, along with their Iraqi driver, Ahmad Mirza.

The Pentagon and the interim government are eager to improve security throughout the country before the January polls for a national assembly and prevent insurgents from derailing them.

DEFUSING FLASHPOINTS

Credible elections began to look somewhat less improbable after an anti-US Shi'ite militia in Baghdad agreed on Saturday to disarm and delegates from rebel-held Falluja said the Sunni Muslim city wanted to vote in the polls.

The Iraqi government will give Shi'ite militiamen five days to hand in weapons under the peace agreement, National Security Adviser Kassim Daoud told a Sunday news conference.

He said the interim government would commit more than US$500 million to rebuilding Sadr City, a slum damaged in battles with US troops.

The Mehdi Army militia led by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr agreed to hand over weapons to Iraqi police from Monday.

Daoud said Iraq's police and National Guard would play a role in Sadr City under the deal and reserved the right to seek support from US-led multinational troops to maintain security.

The government said the Sadr City accord was a good chance for "all misled armed groups in Iraq to rejoin civil society."

Falluja, west of Baghdad, has been in the hands of anti-American insurgents since US forces failed to dislodge them in an April offensive.

The city is also said to be a sanctuary for foreign militants such as Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group beheaded British hostage Kenneth Bigley on Thursday.

A video posted on the internet on Sunday showed Bigley appealing to the British government to meet his captors' demands just before masked men cut off his head with a knife.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq