The Iraqi government today warned the invading forces led by US to be prepared to face more suicide attacks. This warning comes in the heels of a suicide attack near Najaf that killed four American servicemen yesterday.

According to American news broadcaster ABCnews.com, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan had threatened that new suicide attacks will follow the deadly attack o­n the US soldiers.

"This is just the beginning," he was quoted as saying. "You'll hear more pleasant news later."

The report said that according to the US Central Command, four US soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division were killed by a car bomb at approximately 10:40 am local time Saturday, when they stopped a taxi at the unit's checkpoint Highway 9 outside Najaf in central Iraq.

"The driver beckoned them a little bit close and as the soldiers approached, the driver detonated the bomb killing himself and the four soldiers," the report quoted Colonel Will Grimsley, commander of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.


Routine policy

The London Observer reported that the suicide bombing is seen as a "portent of the bitter nature of the combat to come, including the fear among many officers o­n the ground that Iraq will use chemical weapons to counter any advance against Baghdad".

The daily also quoted Taha Yassin identifying the bomber as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a non-commissioned officer in the Iraqi army and father of several children. The Iraqi official also warned that more suicide bombers were being prepared.

"It will be routine military policy. We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land, " said the Iraqi vice president, adding that thousands of Arab volunteers are coming to Iraq to join the fight against the United States and Britain.

In an immediate response, Pentagon officials called the bombing "terrorism", and said that the suicide attacks are a sign of Saddam Hussein's desperation.

The US officials said that such tactics would have "no operational effect o­n the battlefield". However security has been tightened at checkpoints. The Observer reported that Iraqi drivers and their passengers will now have to get out of their vehicles well before checkpoints and approach o­n foot with their hands in the air.

The death of the four servicemen now brings the 38 American military personnel that have been killed since the war began. ABCnews also said that seven have been taken as prisoners of war, and at least 16 are missing in action.

Undercover works

ABCnews also reported that US Special Forces and CIA paramilitary forces are actively seeking targets and people in Iraq, and early success was evident last night when, working off information from Special Forces, F-15 pilots attacked a two-story building near Basra where hundreds of ruling Ba'ath party leaders were believed to be gathered.

From Friday evening, coalition air strikes have targeted nine different Ba'ath party headquarters, and a leadership compound in Baghdad. Also o­n Friday, Army rangers operating in total darkness engaged in a ferocious firefight to take what they said was an Iraqi commando headquarters in the western desert.

"The raid was successful and resulted in the capture of over 50 enemy personnel, weapons, a large cache of ammunition, gas masks, and radios," Brig General Vincent Brooks was quoted as saying in the report.

Washington Post also reported that for at least a week now, the CIA paramilitary teams have been trying to kill members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, and military commanders using snipers and demolition experts.

Ferocious assault planned

Meanwhile o­n battlefront, The Observer reported today that the American forces have been ordered to prepare for a ferocious assault o­n Baghdad to begin in the next few days, in an operation intended rapidly to encircle the Iraqi capital and isolate and destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The attack is planned to last up to 10 days. Military strategists add that the second and most dangerous phase of the operation - the fighting to take Baghdad itself - could take up to five weeks.

The daily said that it was becoming apparent that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his aides are pushing for the swift attack.

Sources say that they are pressing General Tommy Franks, the head of the US Central Command, to attack the Republican Guard divisions defending Baghdad as soon as they have been softened up from the air.

Rumsfeld's way

However according to a Reuters report, Rumsfeld was to be blamed for the stalemate in the war now.

Quoting a New York Magazine article, the news agency said that Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq.

"In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes o­n sale o­n Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way."

"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the New York Magazine quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint o­n the ground."

The magazine also said that Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander General Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance.