Iraq Notebook
2 journalists die in attack near Baghdad

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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Poland's best-known war reporter and a colleague were killed yesterday by gunmen who ambushed the TV crew on a road south of Baghdad.

Waldemar Milewicz, an award-winning correspondent for Poland's TVP television, and Mounir Bouamrane, an Algerian-Polish national who was his producer, died in volleys of gunfire in Mahmoudiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Polish television said.

"Poland's most outstanding journalist has been killed," Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told the PAP news agency. Kwasniewski said the journalists' deaths would have no effect on Poland's role in the occupation, where it leads a multinational force that includes 2,400 of its own troops.

Milewicz, 47, worked more than 20 years for Poland's state TVP, and won numerous awards for his reporting from Chechnya, Afghanistan and other war zones. Among them was an honor from Johns Hopkins University for work in Chechnya in 1995.

An estimated 27 journalists have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Last week, the committee identified Iraq as the most dangerous place to be a journalist.

Report cites delays, thefts in military mail system to Iraq

WASHINGTON — Troops, military families, lawmakers and congressional investigators have a special-delivery message for defense officials: Fix issues with the military mail system to Iraq.

A mounting wave of anecdotal evidence, bolstered by a General Accounting Office report, show delays, disappearances and thefts within the system. The Army insists letters and packages are delivered in 12 to 13 days on average, but the GAO, the watchdog arm of Congress, said the military lacks a "reliable, accurate" way to measure timeliness.

Of the 127 soldiers and Marines interviewed by auditors, nearly half waited four weeks or more to get mail. Many said mail took up to four months. Nearly 80 percent said they never got mail that was sent to them or the mail finally caught up with them after they returned home.

Military officials say they are taking action, including boosting the size and number of postal units in Kuwait and Bahrain.
 
CIA: bin Laden likely the voice on recording seeking killings

WASHINGTON — The CIA said yesterday that a recording posted on the Internet Thursday was "likely" the voice of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden offering gold as a reward to anyone who kills top U.S. and U.N. officials.

The recording on an Islamist Web site offered gold to anyone who killed L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq; U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan; and U.N. envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.

The offering of a financial reward was similar to the approach the United States has taken by offering $25 million for information that would help capture bin Laden, who is believed to be in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bomb kills 4 Iraqi policemen, wounds 1 in city of Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq — A roadside bomb killed four Iraqi policemen and wounded one in the northern Iraq city of Mosul yesterday, police and hospital officials said.

The bomb detonated as a patrol was passing through the al-Jadida district in the southern part of the city.