UK exploring possibility of new UN resolution

US forces still take fire in Iraq as moves on to involve more states

4 August 2003, 18:00 PM

AFP, Baghdad

Guerrilla attacks continued to cause casualties among US troops in Iraq, as Britain said it was exploring the possibility of a new UN Security Council resolution to set up a multinational force in the country.

British special representative in Iraq John Sawers told the Financial Times that preliminary negotiations on such a resolution could start within weeks.

A new United Nations resolution would enable the governments of Pakistan, India and Turkey among others to convince public opinion in their countries of the need to send troops to Iraq, he said.

Sawers, the top British official in the US-led occupation administration, added however that London and Washington were waiting to see what demands France and Russia would make as to the role the UN might play in Iraq.

"We are all conscious of tensions in the UN Security Council," he told the Financial Times.

"They have not gone away. But before we go down the road of seeking a new UN resolution we would want to be confident it was achievable in a way that would support the coalition's present efforts."

The United States and Britain, which invaded Iraq without UN approval in March, have sought, so far with little success, to mobilize the international community to share the military and financial burden of the occupation of Iraq.

A mixed unit comprising mainly troops from Poland and Spain, Washington's main supporters in the war in Iraq after Britain and Australia, is arriving in Iraq, but most other states are still hanging back.

Arab countries for their part, many of them strong opponents of the US occupation of Iraq, are to meet in Cairo Tuesday to discuss the possibility of contributing to the country's reconstruction after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher ruled out any dispatch of troops.

Meanwhile a US soldier and two Iraqi civilians were wounded in an attack near Baquba, 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Baghdad, Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacDonald of the Fourth Infantry Division (4ID) said Monday.

"We had a logistical convoy that was attacked by an improvised explosive device (IED) on highway 2 near the town of Al-Husseini at 11 am (0700 GMT) Sunday," MacDonald said.

A firefight broke out with attackers before 4ID's second brigade "detained 12 Iraqis suspected of carrying out the attack," said MacDonald, who is based out of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.

The attack happened the same day as an Iraqi civilian was wounded by explosives detonated on the road to the Baghdad airport, the site of frequent attacks on US soldiers.