Iraq faces alarming humanitarian crisis

By David Loyn BBC developing world correspondent

Iraq's people were poor and lacked most of the normal signs of development, even before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Fewer Iraqis have access to clean water than did under Saddam

Then it was possible to blame the problems of dictatorship and international sanctions, but since the US-led invasion continuing poverty in this oil-rich state has had other causes.

A new report by Oxfam says that the continuing failure to provide even the most basic services to many Iraqis will not only cause continuing suffering, but "serve to further destabilise the country".

Oxfam are unable to work on the ground in Iraq in the way that they would elsewhere, but working with the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI), their new survey finds "eight million people in need of emergency aid".

The survey recognises that armed violence is the greatest threat facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition".

Savage divisions

Clear statistical analysis is difficult, but the Oxfam/NCCI report believes that more than two million people are now internally displaced within Iraq, as savage new lines are drawn between communities who were not at war before.

Delivering aid to them provides new challenges to a system that is coping even less well than it did in the year after the war.

Of the four million Iraqis who are registered to receive food assistance, 60% receive it. That is down from 96% in the year after the war.

Fewer people have access to clean water than did under Saddam Hussein, and 80% have no access to effective sanitation, a figure comparable to sub-Saharan Africa.

Most UN agencies have found it difficult to operate in Iraq since the devastating bomb that killed their special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and many of his staff only six months after the invasion.

The invasion itself was not mandated by the UN, but the reconstruction effort has since won more international support and its backing.

Humanitarian needs neglected

The Oxfam/NCCI report finds that the immediate needs of Iraqis are being neglected by international funding, which is targeted at longer term development goals.

These goals will be hard to achieve given the major security challenges.

Oxfam says the world must increase humanitarian assistance to Iraq

The report finds that funding for these longer-term projects went up by almost 1000% in the first two years after the invasion, but, despite the need, immediate humanitarian aid fell by about a half.

The report says that the right of the people of Iraq to humanitarian support "is being neglected".

But, while reminding the international community and the UN of their moral responsibility, it recommends a number of basic steps that the government in Baghdad could take to improve the plight of the people.

Most urgently, the report demands that government assistance should be devolved to local control.

That way, locally accountable bodies could inspect the warehouses and delivery systems for aid.

This report must represent a major challenge both to the international authorities and the Iraqi government, who are both found to be failing their people.

Corruption 'mars Iraq rebuilding'

Reports of widespread fraud and waste of funds in Iraq

The US agency overseeing reconstruction in Iraq has told the BBC that economic mismanagement and corruption there are equivalent to "a second insurgency".

The chief auditor assigned by Congress, Stuart Bowen, said the Iraqi government was failing to take responsibility for projects worth billions of dollars.

Mr Bowen also said his agency was investigating more than 50 fraud cases.

Meanwhile, nearly a third of Iraq's population is in need of emergency aid, a report by Oxfam and Iraqi NGOs says.

The report said the Iraqi government was failing to provide basic essentials such as water, food, sanitation and shelter for up to eight million people.

It warned that the continuing violence was masking a humanitarian crisis that had escalated since the US-led invasion in 2003.

On Monday, six people were killed and at least 12 injured in a car bomb attack in Baghdad. The US military also announced the deaths of three of its soldiers in the western province of Anbar.

'Troubling'

US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen was appointed to audit $44bn (£22bn) allocated since 2003, after reports of widespread fraud and waste.

The agency publishes quarterly reports on the situation, most of which have complained about a serious lack of progress. Monday's report was no different.

Millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee the violence, either to another part of Iraq or abroad - many of those are living in dire poverty Jeremy Hobbs Director of Oxfam International

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Bowen said corruption was endemic and described it as "an enemy of democracy".

He added: "We have performed 95 audits that have found instances of programmatic weakness and waste, and we've got 57 ongoing cases right now, criminal cases, looking at fraud."

Mr Bowen said the transfer of projects to Iraqi government control was "troubling", and expressed concern about delays and cost overruns.

The report gave the example of the Doura power station, rebuilt with tens of millions of US dollars, which fell into disrepair once it was transferred to Iraqi control.

Mr Bowen also said Iraqi ministries were struggling to administer funds.

Last year, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government only spent 22% of its budget on vital rebuilding projects, while spending 99% of the allocation for salaries, he said.

He said "a pathway towards potential prosperity" could be found only if oil production was brought up to optimal levels, and security and corruption effectively managed.

'Ruined by war'

The Iraqi parliament has now adjourned until 4 September, despite US calls for it to remain in session and pass already-delayed legislation.

The recess means parliament will reconvene just days before America's top commander in Iraq, Army Gen David Petraeus, reports to Congress on the US troop "surge" strategy.

His assessment will likely provide the backdrop to the next round of war spending.

The BBC's Nicholas Witchell in Baghdad says the report by the UK-based charity and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) makes alarming reading.

The survey recognises that armed conflict is the greatest problem facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition".

It suggests that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation.

Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat.

The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems.

It found that more than two million people have been displaced inside the country, while a further two million have fled to neighbouring countries.

On Thursday, an international conference in Jordan pledged to help the refugees with their difficulties. Oxfam has not operated in Iraq since 2003 for security reasons.

Brown and Bush ponder post-Blair ties

By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website

Gordon Brown: seeking a new US relationship

Gordon Brown's talks with President George W Bush will set a new tone for US-British relations after years of exceptionally warm ties between Mr Bush and the UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The expectation generally is that the UK will continue to be close to the United States but perhaps not quite as close as it was.

The new British leader is an Atlanticist, who knows and likes the US well. He is expected to - and indeed he and Foreign Secretary David Miliband have said he will - continue to advance a foreign policy that is sympathetic towards the US.

But nobody thinks that Gordon Brown is going to find a soulmate in George Bush as Tony Blair did. That relationship was forged in the heat of 9/11 and Iraq.

Iraq...

On the most immediate foreign policy issue to hand, Britain will not undertake a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. However Mr Brown has spoken of a "new stage" and the signs are that he wants out as soon as possible, as long as that is (or can be presented as being) compatible with the policy of handing over only when the Iraqis can do the job.

And Britain will stay in Afghanistan in a combat role. Indeed, it wants more Nato members to join the fray, as does the United States.

...and Iran

A key issue that might well test the relationship is Iran. A new round of UN sanctions is going to be debated, maybe decided, in September, but what if the Bush administration decides to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the final 18 months or so of its term of office?

Mr Brown has not ruled out military action - doing so now could undermine the diplomatic and economic pressure currently being applied, it is felt - but most observers think he would not join in if the US went ahead.

Forged in fire: Bush and Blair at Camp David, February 2001

Mr Brown will go to Camp David on Sunday evening for dinner and will stay over into Monday, the White House spokesman Tony Snow has announced.

He will no doubt try to clear up some mixed signals that his government has sent out about how it wants to deal with Washington. For example, the appointment of Mark (now Lord) Malloch Brown as Foreign Office minister - a man who was a leading critic of the Bush administration when he was a senior UN figure - was seen as a deliberate distancing from the US neo-conservatives.

On the other hand, Britain does not really want to get much closer to the European Union, holding firm to its "red lines" in the EU treaty negotiations, one of which is to preserve a national foreign policy. This approach was reflected in the recent row with Russia in the Litvinenko affair, in which London did not reach out for an EU-wide response but trod its own path.

The possibility is that Britain will end up semi-attached to the United States and semi-detached from Europe.

Links to US

The former British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, was present at Camp David when Tony Blair met George Bush there in February 2001. He dismisses any suggestion that Gordon Brown will want to use Camp David to distance himself significantly from President Bush.

"People have got quite excited about this," he said. "There are thousands of seminars about it but I don't think that it warrants that level of activity. They will not be as close personally, unless some magic strikes, but frankly that does not matter that much.

"There is such an awful lot of stuff in the relationship and while there are variables - personalities, events, and shifts of tone - and sometimes the relationship is not that special, historically since 1945 it goes on regardless.

Rendition differences

One recent example of how the relationship can at times be tense came when a House of Commons committee revealed that Britain had reservations about aspects of the US policy of flying terror suspects around the world but that these were ignored.

It was a reminder that, although the two countries are as close allies as they can realistically be, in the end they can diverge.

"Mr Brown's mixed signals are a classic case of an administration bedding in, with some of the bits not dropping into place," says Sir Christopher.

"As for Iran, I am not sure I see the UK going for military action. There are major military objections. I would be surprised if Britain got involved.

"And in Afghanistan, we need help. How long can we sustain that action?"

Bush and Brown vow co-operation

Mr Bush praised Mr Brown for the UK's battle against terrorism

US President George W Bush and UK PM Gordon Brown have held their first formal talks, renewing pledges to fight terrorism and seek progress in Iraq.

Mr Brown said both nations had duties and responsibilities in Iraq, and that he would seek military advice before announcing any changes in policy.

The pair met at Camp David, near Washington, amid widespread interest about whether they could work together.

The talks also focused on Afghanistan, Darfur, world trade and climate change.

Ahead of the summit there was speculation about whether the Texan president and the Scottish prime minister would find some common ground.

In the event, Mr Bush spoke warmly of the "special relationship" with the UK, describing it as "our most important bilateral relationship" - the same term used by Mr Brown ahead of his trip to the US.

Britain and America's policies on Iraq are in step - for now, at least BBC political editor Nick Robinson

The president said he found Mr Brown a warm, humorous man, far removed from the "dour Scotsman" image sometimes portrayed by the media.

He also paid tribute to Mr Brown's personal strength in overcoming the death of his first child in 2002.

And he joked when he learned that six of Mr Brown's newly-appointed cabinet were under 40 years old, telling the prime minister: "You must be feeling old."

But the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson, at Camp David, says Mr Brown did nothing to return those personal compliments - even referring to their meetings as full and frank, which is normal diplomatic code for an argument.

Iraq debate

On Iraq, Mr Brown said any recommendation on the future role of the UK's 5,500 troops in Iraq could be put to parliament after British MPs return to work in October after a summer break.

That would leave any decision on UK troop levels until after a final report on the US "surge" in Iraq by Mr Bush's commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus.

The consequences of failure would be disaster for Great Britain and the US, something this Prime Minister understands George W Bush US President

Current UK policy in Iraq is to hand over power in Basra province to local Iraqi authorities, following successful handovers in three other southern provinces.

"Our aim, like the United States is, step-by-step, to move control to the Iraqi authorities," Mr Brown said.

Mr Bush then linked the fortunes of both nations to the outcome of events in Iraq.

"The consequences of failure would be disaster for Great Britain and the US, something this prime minister understands," the president said.

'Common struggle'

Mr Brown, who faced a series of attempted bombings in the UK in the days after he assumed office in June, denounced terrorism as a crime, not a cause.

Correspondents say Mr Bush used familiar language, including soaring rhetoric on the subject of good and evil, while Gordon Brown was much more specific, detailing a long list of what the two men had talked about.

However, Mr Brown denied suggestions that his view of terrorism differed greatly from that of Mr Bush.

"We know we are in a common struggle, we know we have to work together, and we know we have to deal with it," he said.

"Today in 2007 we see the challenges are radically different to 10 years ago," Mr Brown added, citing climate change, Africa, and the search for a Middle East peace process as key issues.

He said both men had agreed on the need for tougher sanctions against Iran, and the importance of restarting the Doha round of world trade talks.

Taliban deadline for lives of SKorean hostages looms

Afghan policemen patrol in Ghazni province
©AFP - Shah Marai

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants threatened to start killing Monday their 22 South Korean hostages if the government did not accept by noon their demand for the release of jailed rebels.

The Islamic extremists have already killed the leader of the group of Christian aid workers captured 12 days ago, saying he was shot last week because talks on Afghanistan's latest foreign hostage crisis had stalled.

The insurgents have also, however, let four other deadlines pass without incident.

Monday's 0730 GMT deadline was the last, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP on Sunday as a stalemate emerged over the demand for a prisoner release, which a government negotiator said was not up for discussion.

"We give a last deadline of tomorrow 12 o'clock to the Afghan government to give us their last word if they can release our eight suggested prisoners."

"Otherwise we will start killing the hostages," Ahmadi said.

President Hamid Karzai said during a meeting with a South Korean special envoy Sunday that his government was doing its best to secure the release of the 22 who include 16 women.

But "no prisoners will be released," said a leading member of a government-appointed negotiating team, Mahmood Gailani, a parliamentarian from the troubled southern province of Ghanzi where the group was caught July 19.

Afghan leaders receive medical supplies for the Koreans kidnapped in Ghazni
©AFP - Shah Marai

"It's not government policy to exchange prisoners," he told AFP.

Kabul was roundly condemned when it released five Taliban prisoners in March to free an Italian hostage, and Karzai vowed afterwards such a deal would not be repeated.

Gailani said the government wanted the Islamic fundamentalists to unconditionally free the women and would then consider other Taliban demands.

The holding of women as hostages or prisoners was against Islamic law and Afghan culture, he said, a statement repeated by Karzai in Sunday's talks with South Korean presidential envoy Baek Jong-Chun.

There are concerns for the health of the 22, who were said to be in their 20s and 30s and had been on an evangelical and aid mission to devoutly Islamic Afghanistan.

"Some of the hostages have some health problems due to the weather or psychological pressure they feel," Ahmadi said Sunday with temperatures in southern Afghanistan in the high 30s centigrade (90s Fahrenheit).

The hostages had been divided into small groups and were being held in three different provinces, Ahmadi said. Medicine sent to them had been received and been passed along, another spokesman said.

Several foreigners have been seized this year by militants waging a deadly insurgency against the Western-backed government that replaced the Taliban regime driven from power in late 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda.

Baek Jong-Chun (L) and Hamid Karzai
©AFP - Massoud Hossaini

Most of have been freed, some reportedly after hefty ransom payments, although in the case of the Italian hostage, a journalist, two Afghans were beheaded.

Observers warned at the time that the move increased the threat of foreigners being kidnapped, by the Taliban or criminal gangs seeking ransom.

The militants are also holding a German engineer, kidnapped in Wardak province near Kabul a day before the South Koreans, and have also demanded the release of prisoners to save his life.

"He is sick and forgotten and there are no negotiations ongoing about him at all," Ahmadi said Sunday, although the Afghan and German governments have said that efforts are under way to help the engineer.

He was captured with a German colleague who died four days later. The Taliban said they shot him, but authorities said he died from the conditions of his detention. Four Afghans captured with the engineers are also being held.

Two killed in blast at Rutan rocket site in California

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two people were killed and four others critically injured on Thursday in an explosion at the California rocket-testing facilities operated by famed commercial spaceflight pioneer Burt Rutan, authorities said.

The blast occurred at the Mojave Air and Space Port, where Scaled Composites, the company formed by Rutan, was testing a rocket motor, Kern County Fire spokesman Tony Diffenbaugh said.

He said two people were killed instantly in the explosion at 2:34 p.m. PDT (5:34 p.m. EDT) and four others rushed to a local hospital. The sprawling, 3,300-acre (1,335-hectare) airfield complex was immediately shut down.

"Our units arrived on the scene at a remote test site in the northeast portion of the airport. What they found was six victims of an apparent explosion with various traumatic and burn injuries," Diffenbaugh said.

Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield confirmed four people were being treated there but declined to comment on their condition.

Television images showed wrecked equipment and vehicles and blackened ground from the blast, which Diffenbaugh said involved the highly flammable gas nitrous oxide.

Fire crews waited several hours before approaching the scene because of the extreme danger.

"I am not going to speculate on a cause (of the blast) ... We just know that it was quite a catastrophic event," Diffenbaugh said.

Rutan, who has partnered with Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and British airline tycoon Richard Branson to form a space tourism company, largely bases his company, Scaled Composites, at the airfield.

In 2004 Rutan's SpaceShipOne, a stubby, three-seat rocket plane, made the world's first privately funded manned spaceflight.

The Mojave Airport opened in 1935 as a small rural airfield serving the local gold and silver mining industry and was taken over by the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942 as a military base.

It was returned to civilian use in 1961 and is currently home to the National Test Pilot School, the largest civilian test pilot center in the world.

It also houses one of the country's largest aviation scrap yards and has been used as a location in numerous TV shows and films, including "Die Hard 2" and "Waterworld."

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman and Mary Milliken)

Pentagon makes contingency plans for Iraq pullout

By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is making contingency plans for a gradual U.S. withdrawal of troops from Iraq, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called the planning a "priority."

In a letter delivered on Tuesday to Sen. Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat and presidential candidate who tangled with the Pentagon to learn whether such plans exist, Gates said he was actively involved in drafting them.

He said he would work with the Senate Armed Services Committee to find a way to keep senators informed about the "conceptual thinking, factors, considerations, questions and objectives associated with drawdown planning."

"You may rest assured that such planning is indeed taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field," Gates said. "I consider this contingency planning to be a priority for this department."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman stressed the Pentagon was not planning for a quick or wholesale withdrawal of forces. A phased reduction would be in line with a Bush administration view that some long-term U.S. presence in Iraq may be needed.

"Planning for reducing our forces, drawing down our forces, is certainly something that is an appropriate thing to do," Whitman said. "We are doing that kind of planning, planning for the eventual drawdown, eventual reduction, the beginning of withdrawing of forces from Iraq."

The Defense Department develops contingency plans for a range of scenarios worldwide.

This spring some 30,000 more U.S. troops were sent to Iraq, bringing the total force to about 157,000, under the current plan aimed at establishing enough security to allow Iraqi politicians to make progress toward reconciliation.

All of the so-called "surge" forces have been in place since June 15. Democrats in Congress, however, are calling for a strategy change leading to withdrawal.

Clinton had asked the Pentagon in May for information about contingency planning for a possible troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Defense Under Secretary Eric Edelman, in the Pentagon's written response, did not address whether the Defense Department was making such plans. Instead, he said public discussion of withdrawal "reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies."

Clinton called the response unacceptable and outrageous.

Gates, in a follow-up letter, backed Edelman, noting the official was given his first senior presidential appointment as an ambassador in 1998, during the administration of the senator's husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Taliban say 22 SKorea hostages still alive

An employee opens the gate of the South Korean embassy in Kabul
©AFP - Shah Marai

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The Taliban said 22 South Korean hostages they were holding in Afghanistan were still alive Thursday despite an overnight deadline to start killing them.

Hours after killing one hostage on Wednesday, the Islamic militants had set what they called a "final" deadline for a prisoner swap, but a spokesman said no others had been slain.

"Since the last deadline no more Koreans have been killed," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP in a telephone call from an unknown location. "They are all alive so far."

It was the first word on the fate of the remaining Christian aid workers since the 1:00 am (2030 GMT Wednesday) deadline, which was fixed after the bullet-riddled corpse of one hostage was found.

South Korea identified the dead man as 42-year-old Bae Hyung-Kyu, pastor of the Saem-Mul Presbyterian church and leader of the group of young aid workers -- mostly women -- who were seized on July 19 while reportedly in the country to provide free medical services.

Map showing Ghazni province in Afghanistan where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped last week by the Taliban
©AFP/Graphic - Martin Megino

The rebels said they had executed him because talks with the government to secure the release of eight insurgent prisoners had stalled.

"We killed one of the Koreans today because the government is not being honest in talks," Ahmadi said on Wednesday.

The South Korean government, which has 200 troops serving with US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, bitterly denounced Bae's murder.

"Along with the Korean people, the government strongly protests their act of brutality in killing an innocent civilian," said a statement from the office of President Roh Moo-Hyun.

"The Korean government clearly states that the organisation responsible for the abduction will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen.

"The killing of an innocent citizen cannot be justified under any circumstance or for any reason, and any such inhumane act cannot be tolerated."

Bae, who was killed on his 42nd birthday, co-founded the church in 1998 and has a nine-year-old daughter. He had done volunteer work in Bangladesh and planned to visit Africa to help the poor after the Afghanistan mission.

The government said Baek Jong-Chun, chief presidential secretary for foreign and security policy, left Thursday for Afghanistan as a special presidential envoy.

But it remained opposed to any military rescue.

A man holds a South Korean newspaper showing a group of South Korean Christians before leaving for Afghanistan
©AFP/File - Kim Jae-Hwan

"The government still has an objection to that," said presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-Seon, adding that no raid would be launched without Seoul's approval.

The South Koreans, reportedly being held in Ghazni province about 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of the capital Kabul, were seized while travelling on the road from Kabul to Kandahar last Thursday.

At the time, the Taliban demanded that Seoul withdraw its troops. South Korea responded by saying it would pull them out as previously scheduled by the end of the year.

The Taliban are also holding a hostage from Germany, which also has troops in Afghanistan, and had demanded the withdrawal of all German forces from the war-torn country as well.

But the issue of the troops has not figured in the most recent demands by the militants, who controlled the country until being toppled from power by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

They have instead pressed for the release of insurgents in exchange for the South Koreans -- the biggest group of foreigners to be abducted during the Taliban's nearly six-year insurgency.

A South Korean woman attends a vigil demanding the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Afghanistan
©AFP - Ha Tae-Hwang

Any prisoner exchange would run counter to President Hamid Karzai's pledge not to allow the practice after his government in March freed five Taliban militants in exchange for an Italian reporter.

Mansour Dadullah, the militia's new military commander who took over from his slain brother in May, said in an interview with British television at an undisclosed location that he had ordered his men to take more foreigners.

"Of course, kidnapping is a very successful policy and I order all my mujahideen to kidnap foreigners of any nationality wherever they find them and then we should do the same kind of deal," he said, referring to the March swap.

The Taliban wanted to "give children a military education," he told Channel 4 news.

"We want to use children to behead infidels and spies so that they will become brave," he said.

Taliban say 22 SKorea hostages still alive

An employee opens the gate of the South Korean embassy in Kabul
©AFP - Shah Marai

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The Taliban said 22 South Korean hostages they were holding in Afghanistan were still alive Thursday despite an overnight deadline to start killing them.

Hours after killing one hostage on Wednesday, the Islamic militants had set what they called a "final" deadline for a prisoner swap, but a spokesman said no others had been slain.

"Since the last deadline no more Koreans have been killed," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP in a telephone call from an unknown location. "They are all alive so far."

It was the first word on the fate of the remaining Christian aid workers since the 1:00 am (2030 GMT Wednesday) deadline, which was fixed after the bullet-riddled corpse of one hostage was found.

South Korea identified the dead man as 42-year-old Bae Hyung-Kyu, pastor of the Saem-Mul Presbyterian church and leader of the group of young aid workers -- mostly women -- who were seized on July 19 while reportedly in the country to provide free medical services.

Map showing Ghazni province in Afghanistan where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped last week by the Taliban
©AFP/Graphic - Martin Megino

The rebels said they had executed him because talks with the government to secure the release of eight insurgent prisoners had stalled.

"We killed one of the Koreans today because the government is not being honest in talks," Ahmadi said on Wednesday.

The South Korean government, which has 200 troops serving with US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, bitterly denounced Bae's murder.

"Along with the Korean people, the government strongly protests their act of brutality in killing an innocent civilian," said a statement from the office of President Roh Moo-Hyun.

"The Korean government clearly states that the organisation responsible for the abduction will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen.

"The killing of an innocent citizen cannot be justified under any circumstance or for any reason, and any such inhumane act cannot be tolerated."

Bae, who was killed on his 42nd birthday, co-founded the church in 1998 and has a nine-year-old daughter. He had done volunteer work in Bangladesh and planned to visit Africa to help the poor after the Afghanistan mission.

The government said Baek Jong-Chun, chief presidential secretary for foreign and security policy, left Thursday for Afghanistan as a special presidential envoy.

But it remained opposed to any military rescue.

A man holds a South Korean newspaper showing a group of South Korean Christians before leaving for Afghanistan
©AFP/File - Kim Jae-Hwan

"The government still has an objection to that," said presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-Seon, adding that no raid would be launched without Seoul's approval.

The South Koreans, reportedly being held in Ghazni province about 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of the capital Kabul, were seized while travelling on the road from Kabul to Kandahar last Thursday.

At the time, the Taliban demanded that Seoul withdraw its troops. South Korea responded by saying it would pull them out as previously scheduled by the end of the year.

The Taliban are also holding a hostage from Germany, which also has troops in Afghanistan, and had demanded the withdrawal of all German forces from the war-torn country as well.

But the issue of the troops has not figured in the most recent demands by the militants, who controlled the country until being toppled from power by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

They have instead pressed for the release of insurgents in exchange for the South Koreans -- the biggest group of foreigners to be abducted during the Taliban's nearly six-year insurgency.

A South Korean woman attends a vigil demanding the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Afghanistan
©AFP - Ha Tae-Hwang

Any prisoner exchange would run counter to President Hamid Karzai's pledge not to allow the practice after his government in March freed five Taliban militants in exchange for an Italian reporter.

Mansour Dadullah, the militia's new military commander who took over from his slain brother in May, said in an interview with British television at an undisclosed location that he had ordered his men to take more foreigners.

"Of course, kidnapping is a very successful policy and I order all my mujahideen to kidnap foreigners of any nationality wherever they find them and then we should do the same kind of deal," he said, referring to the March swap.

The Taliban wanted to "give children a military education," he told Channel 4 news.

"We want to use children to behead infidels and spies so that they will become brave," he said.

Iraq envoy slams US over arms supplies

Samir Sumaidaie
©AFP/File - Paul J. Richards

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iraq's ambassador to the United States Wednesday launched a withering attack on what he said was US slowness to provide basic weaponry to his country's ill-equipped armed forces.

Samir Sumaidaie said the foot-dragging was inexplicable given President George W. Bush's oft-stated desire for Iraqi forces to "stand up" and so allow US troops to withdraw from the frontlines.

Rejecting suggestions that the Pentagon is reluctant to allow high-tech US weaponry to fall into Iraqi hands, the ambassador told reporters "we're not talking about nuclear submarines" but basic arms like automatic rifles.

Despite being willing to pay out of its own funds, the Iraqi government has been "waiting and waiting and waiting" for Washington to come forward and has had to turn to other suppliers, such as China, for guns, he said.

"There's constant frustration in the Iraqi government about the speed of equipping our armed forces," Sumaidaie said. The Bush administration has come under fierce pressure at home recently to start pulling out of Iraq.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said he sympathized with the ambassador's ire, while attacking the Democratic-led Congress for balking at the Bush administration's own defense spending plans to supply US troops.

"In many ways those are the kind of signs that you want to see, which is an Iraqi government saying we want to be fully equipped and trained," he said.

Iraqi soldiers parade during their graduation ceremony at a military base
©AFP - Marwan Ibrahim

"We're doing it as rapidly as we can. We understand the frustrations.

"These are matters that the president discusses regularly with the prime minister, and obviously are discussed on a regular basis with others."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in January that the United States could dramatically and quickly cut its troop presence in Iraq if it provided enough weapons to the country's embattled security forces.

The United States is said to have held back from supplying the Iraqi army with large quantities of weapons because some have ended up in the hands of militias and insurgents.

But under a recent "surge" of US troops into Baghdad and surrounding provinces, US commanders are now arming Sunni tribal leaders to take the fight to Al-Qaeda extremists who are accused of stoking Iraq's communal bloodshed.

By the Pentagon's count, there were 353,100 trained and equipped Iraqi security forces as of mid-July. That compares to 158,000 US troops in the country.

Iraqi soldiers hold new rifles distributed by US forces at Camp Taji
©AFP/Pool/File - Ceerwan Aziz

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged "it is clear that there is still much to be done with respect to equipping the security forces" of Iraq.

"But there is a program in place to do it in a very deliberate way, and do it in a way that ensures that they have the type of the equipment they need for the types of missions they are going to be conducting," he said.

The Iraqi embassy was unable immediately to provide a detailed list of the arms it is seeking from the United States, as Congress awaits a pivotal report due in September that Democrats hope to lever into a timetable for withdrawal.

But Sumaidaie said among Iraqi troops' needs are armored personnel carriers to replace their light pickup trucks, which leave them as vulnerable "cannon fodder" while US soldiers patrol in reinforced armor and heavy vehicles.

"This is not helping morale," he said.

An Iraqi soldier frisks a driver minutes before the start of a curfew in Baghdad
©AFP/File - Ali Yussef

In May, Iraq said it was looking to buy more than 1.5 billion dollars' worth of weapons from the United States including helicopters and automatic rifles, such as the M-16, to replace the Iraqi forces' ubiquitous Soviet-designed AK-47 Kalashnikov.

Iraq's Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed said at the time a contract had been signed with the United States to set up "a foreign weapons sales office ... to buy modern weapons and to ensure arrival of these weapons when the ministry asks for them."

Also in May, Iran offered weapons and training to the Iraqi army after accusing Washington of not supplying Baghdad with the equipment needed to defend itself.

The offer came from Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, following a landmark meeting with his US counterpart. The two envoys followed up with a second meeting in Baghdad on Tuesday.

This time around, the United States accused Iran of stepping up its alleged support of militia fighters in Iraq, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker admitted afterwards the encounter had been marked by "heated exchanges."