President Bush blamed both loyalists to Saddam Hussein and foreign "terrorists" for the recent bombing attacks in and around Baghdad.
"Basically what they're trying to do is cause people to run," he told a news conference Tuesday. "That's what terrorists do."
Bush conveyed the United States was working closely with Syria and Iran to prevent foreign fighters from entering Iraq.
Bush denied any surprise at the continuing level of violence. "It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we are soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders," he stated.
Still, Bush added, "The world is safer today because Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are gone...Reconstruction is difficult and freedom still has its enemies in both of those countries."
Bush was asked who was behind the recent wave of attacks in Baghdad. "We're trying to determine the nature of who these people were, but I would assume that they're either - or and probably both - Baathists and foreign terrorists," he said.
"The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear and retreat because they fear a free and peaceful state," the president said.
Earlier in Baghdad, the U.S. occupation authority announced that gunmen killed one of the capital's three deputy mayors in a hit-and-run shooting Sunday.
Baghdad's deputy mayor, Faris Abdul Razzaq al-Assam, had been gunned down near his home, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Assam was shot at around 10:00 pm (1900 GMT) Sunday near his home by gunmen in a car, the spokesman said.
He had just returned from last week's Madrid donors' conference that raised 33 billion dollars for Iraq.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Mosul, the editor of an independent Iraqi newspaper was assassinated Tuesday by men who followed him up to the roof of his office's building as he made a phone call, The AP reported. Ahmed Shawkat, editor of the independent "Without Direction," had received threats for his writings, which have been critical of the anti-U.S. resistance as well as the U.S. occupation,his daughter, Roaa, told The AP.
In southern Iraq, an explosive went off as a patrol passed, wounding a British soldier and two Iraqis - a contractor and a civilian - the military command said. It was the third roadside bombing in the Basra area in the last three days.
Meanwhile, a day earlier, a U.S. soldier was killed in the capital of Baghdad in a grenade attack, the U.S. military said. (Albawaba.com)
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