Iraqi fighters attacked the headquarters of Polish forces in the southern city of Karbala, triggering a gunbattle that killed one Iraqi policeman.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, fighters fired a rocket into the US compound but caused no casualties.
Late Monday, gunmen fired at a hotel housing Polish forces in the holy city of Karbala, but were repulsed by Iraqi police, said Karbala police spokesman Rahman Mashawi. He said the police and the attackers fought a gunbattle that left one policeman dead. Police arrested two of the gunmen and there were no Polish casualties, he added, according to The AP.
Elsewhere, on Monday night, a rocket landed in an empty parking lot inside the "green zone," the area that includes the headquarters of the US-led occupation in Baghdad, a central command spokesman said, requesting anonymity. There were no injuries or casualties.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced Tuesday that the world body will dispatch a team to Iraq to determine whether elections should be held.
"The mission will ascertain the views of a broad spectrum of Iraqi society in the search for alternatives that might be developed to move forward to the formation of a provisional government," Annan said in a statement issued in Paris.
"The mission will report to me on its return to New York," the statement added.
"I strongly hold to the idea that the most sustainable way forward would be one that came from the Iraqis themselves," the statement said. "Consensus amongst Iraqi constituencies would be the best guarantee of a legitimate and credible transitional governance arrangement for Iraq."
Washington is hoping for UN intervention to break a deadlock between the US-led occupation authority in Iraq and the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, over how to choose an interim Iraqi government. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
