Allawi pledges to rout rebels from strongholds

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BAGHDAD -- The government will step up its military drive to clear out rebel strongholds in Fallujah, Ramadi and Sadr City ahead of January elections, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi pledged in an address to the interim national assembly yesterday.

"I hope that from now on, we are going to achieve efficient strikes," said Mr. Allawi, speaking on a day in which more deadly car bombs shook Iraqi cities. "We are going to clear those areas. The operations are going to be increasing in strength."

Members of the 100-member assembly, sometimes derided as a tame echo chamber for the prime minister, used an hour-long question period to harangue Mr. Allawi with tough questions on his government's security, economic and ethnic policies.

"The road leading from Baghdad to the south of the country is known as the 'highway of death,'" declared Tawfiq al-Yassery, chairman of the assembly's national security committee. "What are you going to do about it?"

Mr. Allawi stood calmly as he listened to the questions and gave vague, politically safe answers on topics that illustrated Iraq's daunting troubles.

U.S.-led multinational forces, aided by Iraqi troops, stormed Samarra last weekend to clear that riverside shrine city of militants who controlled it. U.S. and Iraqi officials have described the operation as a dry run for similar efforts in other rebel-held areas.

Terrorists continued their campaign yesterday, with two car bomb explosions in Ramadi killing four Iraqis and another car bomb in Mosul wounding four Americans. Several headless bodies were also reportedly found in and around Mosul.

More than 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops, meanwhile, staged an operation against a suspected insurgent training camp in Baghdad's southern suburbs. U.S. officials said they had captured more than 160 rebels.

The U.S. military earlier reported one soldier was killed north of Baghdad Monday night, bringing the tally of Americans killed in Iraq to at least 1,058.

U.S. warplanes also fired on the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, with at least one Iraqi killed during fighting between U.S. soldiers and loyalists of Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric who leads the Mahdi's Army militia.