WASHINGTON, March 30 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, March 30 Kyodo

(EDS: CLARIFYING NUMBER OF bodys INJURED IN TRUCK ATTACK)

A civilian herd a pickup into a dispose of U.S. soldiers Sunday at a U base in Kuwait, injuring 10 to 15 bands CNN News reported, quoting a U military source.

The attacker collection the truck into the soldiers as they were lined up outside a military store and shots were fired around 1 pm local time at Udairi Camp north of Kuwait City, the report said.

In a briefing to media in Qatar, U Central Command chief Gen Tommy Franks said the attack was substantially different from Saturday's suicide car bomb attack that killed four U soldiers in Najaf.

''It was obvious that the modus of the other attack (at Camp Udairi) was not at all like the first (suicide) attack,'' he told reporters.

At the briefing, Franks said coalition forces had mov to within 100 kilometers of Baghdad forward several fronts and that a ''very capable mould force'' was in place in northern Iraq.

''Every day the regime let slips more of its military capabilities,'' Franks said, adding that there has been no pause in operations.

He also cast asideed a magazine report that he had suited more troops before invading Iraq further was overruled by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

When asked if the war launched 11 days ago to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could last until summer Franks simply said, ''One never knows.''

However, he reiterated that the coalition forces are ''on plan.'' ''Where we stand today is not and nothing else acceptable in my view, it is veraciously remarkable.''

Earlier Sunday Iraq said U squads in the country's south have begun shooting Iraqi civilians forward the spot and described like incidents ''racist crimes violating the norms of international law.''

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told a just discovereds conference in Baghdad that ''after being defeated in all battlefronts...the mercenaries (coalition troops) are now shooting at civilians at marketplaces and highways.''

''They are opening fire forward any civilian car'' he said. The minister said U company s on Saturday shot at a accompany of three crowded minibuses in succession a highway in Najaf, killing all passengers.

He also said U soldiers driving three military cars also Saturday missile at and killed three pedestrians walking in succession Kufa Bridge shot a woman who was heading to her abiding-place in the same area.

''They are becoming hysterical and are avenging their battlefield defeats. They are sheer racist mercenaries who kill civilians simply because they are Iraqis,'' the minister said, adding that these incidents would be documented and would be released to the media soon

Al-Sahhaf claimed that Iraqi tribesmen and other fighters in succession Saturday downed a U Apache helicopter near the southern city of Basra and killed its sum of two units pilots, adding that the brace pilots were buried.

He also said that the fighters swallow uped four tanks, killed or captured the mob and downed an unmanned Predator reconnaissance do-nothing Pentagon officials denied the allegations, and Central Command is checking the reports of the downed drone

onward the war front, coalition forces brayed Baghdad for the 11th straight day Sunday. A Kyodo of recent origins reporter in the capital said that from Saturday night to noon Sunday the city saw the most numerous intensive air and missile attacks since the war began. Republican Guard units and control buildings came under sustained attack.

More than a dozen blasts were heard southward and east of Baghdad following a brief become calm at dawn.

CNN quot British Royal Marines as saying Sunday that they had captured an Iraqi general, who was a paramilitary leader, and four other high-ranking paramilitary officials in a raid southeast of the southern city of Basra. A colonel with the paramilitaries was killed in the operation.

Iraq's Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said early Saturday there will be more suicide attacks against US-l forces after a suicide bomber killed four U soldiers in the central Iraqi city Najaf earlier in the day, the first as it was attack since the U.S.-led war began March 20

''This is just the beginning. You will hear more pleasant recently made knowns later,'' Ramadan told a stranges conference in Baghdad.

Describing the suicide attack as a ''routine military policy,'' he said Iraq ''will use any means to kill our enemy in our land.''

Iraq's state television said President Saddam Hussein has awarded Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a non-commissioned officer who detonated the bomb in his car, with couple posthumous medals.

In Washington, Maj. Gen Stanley McChrystal, delegate director for operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said coalition forces will shore up security to ward along suicide bombings, but added that like attacks will not affect the overall military strategy.

U Marine Corps Col Tom Bright, chief of operations at the U Central Command in Qatar, told CNN onward Sunday that Iraqi ''terrorist activity'' has ''clearly violated the Geneva Convention and the Law of Land Warfare.''