Seven Wounded In Mortar Attack On Polish Base In Iraq: Army

WARSAW, Aug 18 (AFP) - Seven people were slightly wounded on Wednesday during a mortar attack on the base of the Polish-led multinational force in southern Iraq, a Polish army spokesman said.
"Nobody was killed. Seven people in all were slightly injured, according to the last tally. They were three Poles -- one civilian and two soldiers, one of whom was hit in the arm and the other in the leg -- as well as one American, one Indian and two Iraqis," he said.
The commander of the Polish-led force in Iraq, Polish General Andrzej Ekiert, said the mortars were fired from a road two or three kilometres (miles) away.
"The shells were fired at speed. We know the line of fire. The only thing that surprises me is the time of the attack because up to then the base was only attacked at night," he was quoted as saying by the PAP news agency.
"A rapid reaction force was sent outside the base in response to the attack," spokesman Zdzislaw Gnatowski told AFP.
Polish news channel TVN24 showed footage of one soldier, his leg covered in blood, being evacuated by ambulance.
TVN24 said it was the biggest mortar attack to date on the Polish base at Babylon ,with 10 to 12 mortars being fired in a 10-minute period.
The attack came as Poland prepared to move its base from Babylon to somewhere more secure, as announced last week by the army's chief of staff, General Czeslaw Piatas.
The number of attacks on Polish forces have increased over the past few days.
Late on Monday Polish forces came under attack when a mine exploded near their military convoy, the third attack in 24 hours against Polish forces near the holy city of Karbala. There were no casualties during those attacks.
Poland, which controls a swathe of Iraq south of Baghdad, hopes to reduce the number of troops it has in the country from 2,500 to 1,500 soldiers in early 2005.
"Our position is clear. We want to reduce considerably our contingent as from next year, while at the same time being careful that the process of stabilisation (in Iraq) does not suffer," President Aleksander Krasniewski said on Sunday in a speech marking Army Day.
Earlier this month, Polish forces handed over control to US troops of two of the five provinces they administered in Iraq, including the province of Najaf, which has been the scene of heavy fighting.
According to a recent poll, 73 percent of Poles oppose the participation of their country's troops in the US-led international force, against 67 percent in June.
Poland has lost seven soldiers in Iraq, plus four civilians, including a prominent Polish television presenter and his Algerian picture editor, who were gunned down in May.