US clears despatch of Iraq reserve force

BAGHDAD, May 27 : The US military has approved a request from its commander in Iraq to send a reserve force from Kuwait, a spokesman in Baghdad today said.

The spokesman declined to give details but US officials said earlier this month they were considering sending an extra battalion, several hundred soldiers, to the Baghdad area.

''The MNF-I Commander, in coordination with the Government of Iraq, requested and received authority to relocate the Call Forward Force in support of ongoing security operations,'' military spokesman Sergeant Mark Diamond said.

''In view of operational security measures it would be inappropriate to discuss specifics,'' he added in an e-mail response to a question. ''Commanders reserve the right to reposition forces in support of established priorities.'' He did not say where the troops would go or how many there would be.

Sectarian bloodshed has worsened in Iraq since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine. US forces are also seeking to quell a Sunni Arab insurgency.

The call-forward force is trained, ready and available in Kuwait for rapid reaction to problems in Iraq.

The move would duplicate one made in March when the United States sent about 650 soldiers into Iraq from a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Kuwait. Those soldiers remain in Iraq as part of a US force numbering about 133,000 troops.

American casualties have risen in April and May after months of decline, and US officials had forecast an increase in violence to coincide with the seating of the new Iraqi government.

Reuters