Spain moves ahead with Iraq pullout

From combined dispatches

BAGHDAD — Spain said yesterday it would withdraw its 1,400 troops in Iraq as soon as possible, dealing a new setback to the U.S.-led coalition as 11 U.S. troops were reported killed in fighting against Iraqi insurgents.

Five of the deaths came in an area of western Iraq that has seen little previous fighting. Military officials said the Iraqi insurgents had been surrounded by women and children apparently serving as human shields.

U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer said in Baghdad that Iraqi security forces will not be ready to protect the country by June 30, setting the stage for a continued heavy presence of U.S. troops after sovereignty is transferred to Iraqis.

“Events of the past two weeks show that Iraq still faces security threats and needs outside help to deal with them,” Mr. Bremer said. “It is clear that Iraqi forces will not be able, on their own, to deal with these threats by June 30 when an Iraqi government assumes sovereignty.”

Spain, which has the sixth-largest number of troops in the coalition, announced its decision to pull out during a weekend of new fighting that pushed the death toll for U.S. troops in April to 99 — already the record for a single month in Iraq and approaching the number killed during the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein last year.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was sworn in earlier yesterday, said he had issued the order because he did not expect a U.N. resolution to be adopted “that conforms with the conditions we have set for our presence in Iraq.”

Mr. Zapatero’s Socialists had pledged before winning a March election to withdraw Spain’s troops unless the United Nations took control of security arrangements in Iraq on June 30.

“This morning … I gave [the defense minister] the order to do what was necessary for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq to come home in the shortest possible time and in the greatest possible safety,” Mr. Zapatero said on Spanish television.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Washington wanted the Spanish withdrawal to be made in a “coordinated, responsible and orderly manner,” but offered no comment on Madrid’s decision.

The Spanish troops, part of a Polish-led multinational force responsible for part of central and southern Iraq, have come under sporadic attack and several have been wounded.

At least 10 Spanish military personnel have been killed in Iraq since last August.

Five of the 11 latest U.S. combat deaths were Marines who were killed in clashes against scores of heavily armed insurgents in Husayba on the Syrian border, the U.S. military said.

Fighting continued yesterday in three neighborhoods of the city, which was sealed off by U.S. forces. Authorities said 25 to 30 guerrillas also had been killed.

“A daylong series of firefights began … when a Marine patrol reported they were under fire by enemy forces wielding machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades,” the 1st Marine Division said in a statement.

“Marines continued to bring coordinated fire against the enemy force of approximately 120 to 150 fighters throughout the day and into the night.”

The Marines said women and children had surrounded guerrilla mortar positions during the fighting, apparently as human shields. “It is unknown whether or not they were in those positions on their own free will,” the statement said.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN that insurgents in the Sunni bastion of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, had also used human shields.

Three soldiers were killed Saturday when their 1st Armored Division convoy was ambushed near the southern city of Diwaniyah. Another died when a roadside bomb exploded near a convoy in Baghdad, and a Marine was killed in action in western Iraq, separate from the fighting by the Syrian border.

A soldier also died in a tank rollover, and another was shocked to death in an accident in the northern city of Samarra.

Rockets aimed at a military camp in western Baghdad hit a nearby civilian area, killing two Iraqi civilians. Two U.S. civilian contractors and a soldier also were wounded.

A day and a half of calm in Fallujah was broken yesterday when Marines battled gunmen around a mosque.

U.S. officials and Fallujah representatives reported progress in negotiations on Friday and Saturday to ease violence in the 16-day Marine siege, when gunfire in the city all but halted. Talks were to resume today.

Yesterday, however, insurgents in a building opened fire on a U.S. tank, which returned fire and destroyed the building, located next to a mosque, Marine spokesman Lt. Eric Knapp said. Gunmen also fired from the mosque’s minaret, he said.

Iraq’s defense minister — Ali Allawi, a Shi’ite Muslim appointed by U.S. officials two weeks ago — announced his two top generals, a Sunni and a Kurd, establishing representatives of the country’s three main communities in the senior defense positions.

The army’s top leader will be Gen. Babakir Zebari, who commanded Kurdish militiamen in the north for decades and fought alongside coalition troops during last year’s invasion. The chief of staff will be Amer al-Hashimi, a Sunni and former general in the Iraqi infantry.

U.S. officials have been rebuilding the military from scratch, arranging the training of recruits and naming Mr. Allawi as its civilian head.