A report by the UK newspaper The Times, scheduled to publish on May 17, by citing the words of a senior UK official says that the British and US governments are drafting a plan to withdraw coalition troops from Iraq as soon as possible.

The official said on condition of anonymity "we are not fleeing away". The objective is to establish a strategy, which will enable Iraqi people to take over the power as soon as possible and enable the coalition troops to quit from Iraq in a quickest possible way.

British Prime Minister Blair on May 17 condemned the bombing that killed the rotating Chairman of Iraqi Governing Council Izzadine Salim and said Britain still hopes to hand over sovereignty to Iraqi people as planned.

The US Occupation Administrator in Iraq Bremer issued a statement on May 17 condemning the bombing that killed the rotating Chairman of IGC Izzadine Salim on the same day and calling it a despicable behavior.

A suicide car bomb blasted on May 17 at a checkpoint into the headquarters for the coalition occupation troops in Iraq, killing 10-plus Iraqis including Salim.

The United States has recently hoped to pull about 4,000 troops out of South Korea to Iraq to help the smooth handover of Iraqi sovereignty, Kim Sook, chief of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau said on May 17, and South Korea has expressed its understanding and consent.

Kim Sook said the transfer is to cope with the emergency in Iraq and it is still left to discuss whether those troops will eventually return to South Korea.

As learned the troops the US government plans to withdraw are from the 2nd Infantry Division stationed in Dongducheon. Currently the 2nd Infantry Division has 14,000 troops among a total of 37,000 US troops stationed in the ROK.

The American occupation forces in Iraq issued a statement on May 17 saying a gun firing occurred on May 16 in a city south of Baghdad, which killed one US soldier and wounded two.

According to personnel at an Iraqi hospital Italian forces encountered Sadr's militiamen in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya. In the following gun firing 9 Iraqis died and 14 were wounded.

By People's Daily Online