Troops tighten security, arrest 8 rebel suspects

Bremer said 'there's been a suggestion of high terror threats' in Iraq recently.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces arrested eight rebel suspects in a stronghold of anti-American resistance northwest of Baghdad, the military said today, as troops tightened security against possible attacks over Christmas.
Those arrested include an ex-colonel accused of recruiting guerrillas and four suspected associates of fugitive former Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who is believed to have a leading role in Iraq's insurgency.
Three soldiers of the U.S.-led coalition died Monday. Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. A Polish soldier died when a fellow soldier's gun fired accidentally in Babylon, south of Baghdad, hours after a visit by Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
In Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, gunmen fatally shot a judge, Youssef Murad, in his car. The assailants escaped.
Also in Mosul, rebels today fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of four U.S. Humvees escorting a cash delivery to a city bank. One soldier was wounded, according to a U.S. soldier at the scene who declined to give his name.
South Korea is planning to send 3,000 troops to join 460 military medics and engineers already in Iraq, media reports from Seoul said today. That deployment, for nine months from April 1, would make the South Korean contingent the third largest in the 26-nation coalition after the United States and Britain.
'Potential threats'
Meanwhile, President Bush was given an update on Iraq in a meeting in Washington on Monday with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Bremer told NBC television earlier that "there's been a suggestion of high terror threats" in Iraq in recent weeks unrelated to Saddam Hussein's capture Dec. 13.
In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling of the 1st Armored Division said, "We have some indications that it would be prudent to take some additional measures to counter specific potential threats."
Hertling told The Associated Press in an e-mail that in the past week his division had captured "nine senior leaders in the former regime network" and were pursuing another dozen.
Detained leaders
Today, a U.S. task force in Baqouba arrested five Iraqis, including one suspected of recruiting guerrillas, Maj. Josselyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division told the AP. Two other military sources said the other four were believed to be associates of al-Douri, No. 6 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. Thirteen fugitives from that list remain at large, with al-Douri at the top.
In an overnight raid in Baqouba, 30 miles northwest of Baghdad, U.S. troops also detained a former Iraqi army colonel suspected of recruiting ex-Iraqi soldiers to fight the U.S. military. Aberle said the ex-colonel was believed to be connected to a local businessman helping to finance the insurgency.