This week's upsurge in Iraqi violence shows no signs of abating. On Wednesday, at least a dozen people were killed. Clashes between members of the Iraqi resistance and US troops in the troubled city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killed at least 10 people and wounded six. Three US soldiers were killed and seven others injured during this fighting.

In Suwayra, south of Baghdad, a car bomb blew up at an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint, killing two people and wounding 10 others. On Wednesday morning, Iraqi troops found three beheaded bodies on a roadside north of Baghdad. The heads were near the bodies. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said that they were all men and had tattoos; otherwise there was no identification.

On Tuesday Iraq witnessed the deadliest attacks in two months: 75 Iraqis were killed in a Baghdad car bombing and in an ambush on an Iraqi police station in Ba'aquba. A group linking itself to Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi, the prime suspect for several deadly attacks in Iraq, claimed responsibility for both attacks. Meanwhile, the blowing up of a pipeline in the north halted oil exports to Turkey and caused electricity cuts throughout Iraq.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health said that 47 persons were killed and 114 wounded in a booby-trapped explosion at the main entrance of the Karkh police complex, close to a commercial neighborhood in Baghdad's Haifa Street. The explosion targeted scores of Iraqis who were applying to join the security forces, and destroyed the area around the police headquarters. Iraqi Minister of Interior Fallah Al Naqib said: "There are well conducted operations to kill civilians in Iraq and undermine Iraq's interests." He accused "Arab and non-Iraqi groups" of being responsible for the attacks. Resistance groups deny targeting civilians and maintain that all parties affiliated with occupation forces are legitimate targets. Three hours later, a small bus carrying Iraqi policemen was fired upon in Ba'aqouba. Thirteen people (12 policemen and the bus driver) were killed. The American army said the killed policemen were from the Criminal Investigation Department in the Iraqi police.

A group calling itself "Squads of Unification Lions" abducted a Jordanian truck driver in Iraq on Tuesday. A videotape aired on the Doha-based Al Jazeera TV satellite channel showed the purported hostage and documents identifying him as Turki Khalifah Al Breizat with three masked gunmen. The previously unknown group said it was "giving the firm employing the Jordanian driver, who admitted to ferrying fuel to the US army, 48 hours to announce it is ceasing operations in Iraq, otherwise they would kill the hostage." A Jordanian trucking company [not clear whether the same one] says it is halting business in Iraq to free an employee kidnapped this week. However, Iraqi gunmen have reportedly freed a Turkish truck driver.

Meanwhile, the American army lifted the embargo imposed on Tell Afar city, where US troops ended their attacks after killing or wounding hundreds of civilians during five days of siege and military operations. More than 50 people were killed in pitched battles between the US troops and resistance fighters. Tell Afar is a city of 150,000 people, mostly Shiite Turkmen. US forces sealed off the city and hundreds of families were forced to flee to a makeshift refugee camp on the outskirts of the town as US troops and rebels battled inside. The American army claimed the city was a gathering point for non-Iraqi fighters entering Iraq from nearby Syria.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that Ankara and Washington would act together to provide assistance to the town's population. On Wednesday, many families were seen returning to their homes in Tell Afar after the US army's embargo was lifted.

The George Bush administration decided Tuesday to send nearly 2 billion dollars in direct aid to train more than 80,000 Iraqi security forces to provide help in fighting the resistance to the occupation. Without security, claimed Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, "there is no possibility, however many power plants you have, to actually get electricity, water [and] power to Iraqis."

According to the Pentagon, attacks against both US forces and Iraqis have increased since the US "ceded" authority to the current Interim Iraqi Government on June 28. And US officials have recently acknowledged that they have little or no control in significant areas of Iraq. The additional spending on security is part of a long-awaited plan by the administration to redistribute $3.46 billion, or about one-fifth of the $18.4 billion authorized by the US Congress last year for Iraqi reconstruction projects through September 2006. Under the plan now announced and sent to Washington two weeks ago by Ambassador John Negroponte, projects to rebuild the infrastructure for water, sewage and electricity will be severely hit. In all, they are to lose about $3 billion dollars. The rest of the redirected funds will come from suspending plans to purchase $450 million worth of refined oil.

More than $1.8 billion will be added to bolstering security, with the rest of the cash aimed at enhancing Iraq's oil capacity, economic development, debt reduction, accelerating short-term Iraqi employment and preparing for the elections next January.

Note: Most urgent is the training and equipment of separate Shiite and Kurdish armies and police. Sunni Arabs should not be armed, as they are unreliable from the Shiite and Kurdish viewpoint and may cause unrest. The Shiite forces should be put in control of the Sunni Arab areas in central Iraq. US and other foreign forces should plan to leave Iraq for Syria as soon as possible after the January 2005 elections, i.e. when the Shiite and Kurdish armies are ready to take over in their respective areas