Shortened for relevance and re-ordered.
Baghdad has warned suicide missions against coalition forces will become "routine military policy", following a deadly attack against US soldiers on Saturday.
Not that we haven't seen suicidal missions already.
Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said an army officer had carried out the "martyrdom operation" which killed four American soldiers — the first such attack against US forces since the war began. The attacker — dressed in civilian clothes — drove a taxi to a checkpoint near the central city of Najaf and, as the soldiers approached it, detonated it. Iraqi television said President Saddam Hussein had posthumously awarded two posthumous medals to the war criminal suicide bomber — junior officer Ali Hammadi al-Namani. It said the attacker wanted to "teach the invaders a lesson in the same manner as our Palestinian martyrdom fighters".
| So does that mean we can kill Sheikh Yassin? Or at least blow up his house? |
"This is just the beginning," the Iraqi vice-president warned at a news conference in Baghdad. "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," Mr Ramadan said. The BBC's Gavin Hewitt, who is with US forces in Iraq, says it is a worrying development for the troops, who are already having to contend with sniping and other attacks. The soldiers killed were from the US Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, US Captain Andrew Wallace said. He said that when the driver stopped at the checkpoint, he indicated to the soldiers that he needed some help. "As they approached the car... he set off the bomb," he said. Major-General Victor Renuart at US Central Command said they were concerned about any kind of "unconventional attack" on US forces. "These kind of actions are symbolic of an organisation that is getting a little bit desperate," he said.
| They're indicative of a terrorist organization... |
Prior to the military campaign, there were warnings of possible suicide attacks. In mid-March, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told an Arabic television station that tens of thousands of Iraqi men and women were ready to be martyrs for any war against the American enemies. |