BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Two American soldiers were killed near Baghdad and along the Syrian border, the U.S. military said Thursday, and Polish forces suffered their first combat death when a Polish major was fatally wounded in an ambush south of the capital.
The new violence occurred as a senior Japanese official said his country would honor its commitment to send peacekeepers to Iraq despite the heightened threat to Japanese military and civilian personnel.
Yukio Okamoto, top diplomatic adviser to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, said withdrawing from Iraq would send the wrong message to "terrorists who seek to thwart international support efforts," the Kyodo news agency reported Thursday.
A senior figure from the U.S.-led coalition warned that the Americans and their allies face a "rough winter" of attacks by insurgents.
