Iraq Watch: January 31, 2006

British Toll Hits 100; Bodies Found in Capital

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A British soldier was killed in a roadside bombing near the Kuwaiti border on Tuesday bringing the total number of British causalities from the war in Iraq to 100. The bomb, which also wounded three British troops, detonated as a military convoy was passing by in the port city of Umm Qasr.

Britain has approximately 8,000 troops in Iraq with the bulk of the contingency stationed in the typically less violent Shiite south.

Elsewhere, the executed bodies of 16 people were discovered in and around the capital city of Baghdad. 11 of the bodies were found inside a truck in the western Baghdad district Ghazaliyah while the other five were discovered near a sewer plant in the capital's eastern Rustamiyah neighborhood.

Meanwhile, a firefight northeast of Baghdad left three Iraqi soldiers dead and six wounded. The gun battle took place in the Sunni town of Buhriz, located about 30 miles from the capital.

Also Tuesday, the Arabic language channel Al-Jazeera aired a video of two captured German engineers. In the tape, the Tawhid and Sunnah Brigade threatened to kill the two men if Germany did not sever its ties with the Iraqi government and close its Baghdad embassy within 72 hours. Thomas Nitzschke and Rene Braeunlich were abducted January 24 in the northern city of Beiji.

Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, Iraq's Oil Minister, resigned from his post on Tuesday amid growing anger of increasing Iraqi gas prices. Al-Uloum resigned earlier this month but was quickly reinstated. Despite sitting on the world's second largest oil reserve, Iraqi gas prices have been increasing as of late due to a recent cut in fuel subsidies along with frequent sabotage attacks on Iraq's oil pipelines.