Iraq jail attack kills 22 inmates

The prison had a fearsome reputation under Saddam Hussein

A mortar attack on an Iraqi detention centre near Baghdad has left 22 inmates dead, the US military says.

All the casualties in the attack on the Baghdad Confinement Facility in Abu Ghraib were prisoners of the US-led coalition, officials said.

A further 92 prisoners were wounded in the attack when 12 mortar rounds hit the jail, they added.

The inmates were described as "security detainees" - people suspected of attacks on coalition forces.

More than 4,400 such people are being held in the prison.

The sprawling prison complex of Abu Ghraib, which covers more than one square kilometre, was one of Iraq's biggest prisons under Saddam Hussein's regime and had a fearsome reputation.

It lies on the road to Falluja on the edge of the area known as the Sunni triangle, which has seen some of the fiercest resistance to the US-led occupation.

In other developments on Tuesday:

• US marines in Falluja killed eight insurgents and destroyed three vehicles after spotting them carrying rocket-propelled grenades, US military officials said.

• A US soldier died in a military hospital after being wounded in a bomb attack on his convoy in the northern city of Mosul, the US military said.

• The US company Halliburton confirmed that the bodies of three of its workers, missing in Iraq since 9 April, had been recovered west of Baghdad; a fourth body has not been identified.

• Civilians who had fled the fighting in the besieged city of Falluja began returning after US forces announced measures to end the military stand-off with Sunni insurgents.

Negotiations scepticism

Iraqi security forces have reportedly moved back into Falluja to restore control and collect weapons from insurgents, the Associated Press news agency said.

However, in a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday, the US joint chiefs of staff vice-chairman, General Peter Pace, warned that US troops surrounding both Falluja and Najaf were "poised to resume operations" against insurgents in both cities.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also appeared sceptical regarding negotiations.

"The difficulty is that the people causing trouble are not part of the discussions," he said.

"So the chances of negotiations producing an outcome seem to me, realistically, to be difficult."

Mr Rumfeld's comments were echoed by General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Falluja was a "rats' nest" which needed to be dealt with using force.

"It is still festering today [and] it needs to be dealt with," he was quoted by AFP as saying.

Also testifying before the committee, Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, denied allegations made by former White House security expert Richard Clarke that he had ignored the problem of al-Qaeda in favour of invading Iraq.

"He is simply wrong when he says I dismissed the threat of al-Qaeda, the threat of terrorism," Mr Wolfowitz said.

'Solid support'

The violence at the prison near the capital came as the US redoubled its efforts to keep its international coalition of forces together, after Spain and Honduras decided to withdraw their troops.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had called the leader or the foreign minister of every country in the coalition over the past 24 hours.

He said he was getting solid support from the other members of the coalition for the American-led effort and a series of commitments to finish the job.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Washington says that despite Mr Powell's comments, it is not yet clear whether there will be any more defections.

He says it is reported that Poland may be considering withdrawing its contingent of nearly 2,500 troops when their current commitment ends in September.