NZ's troops to stay as Iraqi violence rises

By SCOTT MacLEOD and AGENCIES

Sixty-one New Zealand defence staff will stay in Iraq despite the increasing number of attacks on coalition forces.

Basra, where New Zealand staff are stationed, has been rocked by explosions during the past week, and al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein sympathisers are reported to be filtering into the region.

Calls to remove troops are growing in Italy after a suicide bomb attack in Nasiriyah, 150km north of Basra, killed 18 Italian soldiers and paramilitary police.

As the scale and intensity of attacks on coalition forces increases, United States President George W. Bush has recalled the top US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, for urgent talks with senior national security advisers.

"We are in a very intense period here," said Bremer.

Acting Defence Minister Phil Goff yesterday said New Zealand would not be cowed by the attacks.

"We have no intention of being frightened by any terrorists.

"Our people are in a high-risk area, and that means you can expect casualties. But they're equipped to defend themselves."

New Zealand troops are known for relating well to local residents. But this causes security problems, because they often spurn protective flak-jackets and helmets so they will appear less intimidating.

Mr Goff said it was a matter of "striking a balance" between protection and integrating with the community.

New Zealand's Chief of Defence Force, Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson, said the engineers would stay in Basra "as long as the environment allows them to undertake their tasks".

Their one-year mission had always been seen as high risk, Air Marshal Ferguson said.

Two New Zealanders - Captain Hayden Gardner in Basra on October 29 and Major Todd Hart in Baghdad on August 20 - have been wounded by bomb blasts in Iraq.

The latest Basra attacks were on Tuesday, when four Iraqis were killed and nine injured in downtown bomb blasts.

On Sunday, a British vehicle was smashed on Sunday by a bomb planted near a Basra road.

This is a method of attack increasingly favoured by Iraqi dissidents.

In Baghdad yesterday, an American soldier died when a similar roadside bomb smashed into the vehicle in which he was travelling. Another soldier was injured.

A British officer, Major Charles Mayo, said troops had found and defused at least five roadside bombs around Basra in the past week.

Last week, two men were arrested after throwing grenades at a Basra school.

The French news agency AFP claimed that at least 36 women saboteurs arrived in Basra from the north a week ago.

It quoted a source who said they were linked to Hussein loyalists.

Defence officials give little away about the New Zealanders, but news of their living conditions in Basra comes from reports in defence publications.

In Navy Today, Leading Marine Technician Daryl Roberts spoke of arriving in Basra to one-minute showers, wrecked cars, bombed buildings, and donkeys sifting through trash.

The Basra roads were "all bombed to hell", and the Iraqi drivers were almost as bad as Aucklanders.

Last month he heard "a massive gunfight" in an area where there are "big fights between rival tribes".

The attack on the Italians came when an explosive-laden truck approached a building at the Italian compound.

Guards fired at it, but the vehicle ploughed through the gate and exploded.

Twelve Carabinieri paramilitary police, four soldiers, an Italian civilian, an Italian documentary filmmaker, and at least eight Iraqis were killed.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi - who supported the US-led war, despite the opposition of most of his people - told Parliament after the bombing that "political bickering should go silent".

His opponents largely respected that wish yesterday, but warned that it wouldn't last.

Herald Feature: Iraq