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140,000 US troops to stay in Iraq long: Pentagon 16 more killed in Iraq violence

AFP, Washington

The US troop presence in Iraq will remain bigger than it was before last year's "surge" in forces, even after the pull-out of some 20,000 troops by July, a top Pentagon official said Monday.

"In Iraq we are now projecting approximately 140,000 troops there in July," General Carter Ham, operations director of the Joint Staff, told reporters. He had earlier said that 8,000 support forces and trainers will need to stay on.

"It is, by the end of July, bigger than when we started the surge" in January 2007.

About 132,000 troops were in place when President George W. Bush ordered an increase in US forces in Iraq in a bid to quell violence and clear the way for political reconciliation among rival factions.

"There is a full expectation that further reductions will occur" in troop levels, Ham said, but it was "premature" to talk about "timing and pace" of this further drawdown.

Ham said earlier this month that support forces and trainers that went in with the surge will still be needed to back up Iraq's expanding security forces after the last of the extra combat brigades leaves.

About 8,000 support troops were deployed to Iraq as part of the surge.

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, has called for a pause in US troop reductions after July to allow time to evaluate the performance of Iraq's security forces and the impact on security of a smaller US force.

At the peak of the post-surge period, the United States had some 170,000 troops in Iraq as it fought to quell a violent insurgency following the 2003 invasion which it led to depose former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Another report from Baghdad: At least 16 people were killed across Iraq on Monday, including soldiers and four pilgrims, a day after a suicide bomber killed 48 Shiite pilgrims in an attack which US officials blamed on Al-Qaeda.

In a brazen late afternoon attack, armed men ambushed a passing Iraqi army patrol in the town of Bohruz, in the restive Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, said army Brigadier General Ragib al-Omairi, the regional commander.

Seven soldiers and an army major were killed in the ambush, Omairi said.

Earlier Monday, a group of Shiite pilgrims heading to the central city of Karbala for the Arbaeen religious ceremony was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Four of them, including three women, were killed, while 15 others were wounded, security officials said.

Tens of thousands of Shiite faithful are vulnerable to attack as they walk to Karbala from across Iraq to attend the Arbaeen ceremony, which marks the 40th day after Ashura, when the slaying of a revered seventh century imam is marked.

Turkey kills 153 rebels in Iraq offensive

AP, Cukurca

Turkey's military said Monday it had killed 41 more separatist Kurdish rebels in clashes in northern Iraq, raising the reported guerrilla death toll in a cross-border operation to 153.

A statement posted on the military's Web site also said two more soldiers were killed in fighting, but gave no details. The deaths would drive the total Turkish military fatalities since the start of the incursion Thursday to 17. It said the military had hit some 30 targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in the last 24 hours.

Rebels disputed the claim of the number of fighters killed and warned that Turkey had entered a conflict that it could not win.

Turkey said its troops fired dozens of salvos of artillery shells at suspected rebel hideouts Monday and clashed with the rebels in four parts of northern Iraq.

Pakistan army occupies Swat Valley from militants

AP, Uchrai

Hardcore militants who seized Pakistan's most scenic valley are still holed up in its snowy heights, three months after President Pervez Musharraf sent in the army to show his resolve against spreading Islamic extremism.

Down below, life in the towns that dot the Swat Valley has returned to something approaching normality. But bombings persist and Mullah Fazlullah, the firebrand cleric behind last year's Taliban-style uprising, remains at large.

In November, the army launched one of its biggest operations since Pakistan threw its support behind the U.S.-led war against terrorism six years ago. On Monday, the military ferried journalists by helicopter to three mountaintop positions to show the territory its more than 10,000-strong force has retaken.

Six killed in Afghan blast

AP, Kabul

A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying five policemen and a child in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing all six, officials said.

Taliban militants have increasingly aimed their attacks at police, killing more than 925 officers in 2007 alone. Afghan police often work in small groups in remote and dangerous territory, where they are outnumbered and outgunned by insurgents.

Cyclone toll in Madagascar rises to 44

AP, Antananarivo

The death toll has risen to 44 and the number of homeless is up to 145,000 more than a week after a cyclone tore through this island in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar's government said Monday.

Areas on the eastern side of the island remained cut off by flood waters. Seven major roads were impassable and bridges have been destroyed, hampering attempts to deliver relief, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Bush predicts GOP will hold White House

AP, Washington

President Bush predicted Monday that voters will replace him with a Republican president who will "keep up the fight" in Iraq. "I'm confident we'll hold the White House in 2008," Bush told donors at the Republican Governors Association annual dinner, which raised a record $10.6 million for GOP gubernatorial candidates. "And I don't want the next Republican president to be lonely," Bush said. "And that is why we got to take the House, retake the Senate, and make sure our states are governed by Republican governors." The pep talk came in the midst of a presidential campaign that largely has overshadowed Bush's final year in office. Bush has promised to be an active fundraiser, and he had no trouble slipping into enthusiastic campaign mode Monday evening. He said Republicans still offer the bedrock positions that voters embrace: strong defense, low taxes and personal freedoms.

"When I say I'm confident, I am so because I understand the mentality of the American people," Bush said.

Rice wins Chinese help on NKorea nukes

AP, Beijing

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won a verbal assurance Tuesday from China to use its influence to jump-start the stalled process of dismantling North Korea's nuclear programs. Yet it was unclear when or how the Chinese would follow through.

In broad discussions with Chinese officials, Rice also won an agreement from China to resume an on-again, off-again human rights dialogue with the United States and she pleased her Chinese hosts by restating firm U.S. opposition to a Taiwanese referendum on United Nations entry that has infuriated Beijing. But North Korea dominated the talks and Rice urged China, which has considerable leverage with its Stalinist neighbor, along with others n the six-nation denuclearization effort, to "use all influence possible" with Pyongyang to meet its pledges to the group.

Israeli PM doubts about peace deal with Palestinians this year

AFP, Tokyo

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert voiced doubt Tuesday that the Jewish state would meet a goal of reaching a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians this year. "We have a desire to reach an agreement within the year 2008. But I am not sure we will make it," Olmert said on a visit to Tokyo. Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas late last year restarted negotiations after a seven-year freeze with a summit in Annapolis near Washington. The talks set a goal of concluding a comprehensive agreement by the end of 2008, coinciding with the end of George W. Bush's US presidency. Olmert said there was "no better opportunity" than now to reach a settle the Middle East conflict. "We are determined to make a giant step forward to end this dispute once and for all," Olmert said. "We want to make every possible effort to seize this opportunity."

Wildfires flare up in Texas, New Mexico

AP, Robert Lee

Wildfires fueled by strong winds and warm temperatures charred about 286 square miles in central and west Texas on Monday, forcing the evacuation of this community of 1,500 people.

About 100 to 150 residents of the small town were settling in at the gymnasium of the Bronte School District, where cots were being set up for the evacuees.

"They basically came with just themselves and their children," Superintendent Alan Richey said. Some brought their pets. A fire that had burned about six square miles in Coke County caused the evacuation of Robert Lee, said Anne Jeffery, an information officer for Texas Forest Service. Robert Lee is about 65 miles southwest of Abilene. Several other fires burning across the state, including one that had burned about 47 square miles in Sterling County, Jeffrey said. Some homes were evacuated near the towns of Cottonwood and Mason, Jeffrey said. Earlier in the day, about 200 homes were evacuated in Odessa due to a wildfire. Those residents were allowed back home by early evening, said Andrea Goodson, a spokeswoman for the city of Odessa. The fire, which moved south of the community, has around seven square miles, she said.

China, Pakistan and Vietnam on bird flu alert

Reuters, Beijing

China and Pakistan have announced bird flu outbreaks among poultry, a day after two women, one in China and one in neighboring Vietnam, died of the virus. The Chinese outbreak, first noticed on February 17 in Zunyi in the southwestern province of Guizhou, had killed nearly 4,000 birds and triggered the culling of more than 238,000, Xinhua news agency said late on Monday, citing the Ministry of Agriculture. China has reported four outbreaks of the disease in poultry since December, when average temperatures across the country hit their lowest in decades. Bird flu tends to be more active in the cold. Experts fear the H5N1 strain could mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic. With the world's biggest poultry population and hundreds of millions of farmers raising birds in their backyards, China is seen as crucial in the global fight against the disease.