BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The intensity of attacks on American interests in Iraq has evidently ascended in recent two days after nearly a week of ebb, as a voice purportedly from al-Qaida terror network threatens with more assaults on occupying troops.

　　The US troops in Iraq suffered 22 attacks in the last 24 hours, in which one soldier was killed and six wounded, US military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said on Wednesday.

　　A total of 26 raids and 1,498 patrols were conducted in the same period, detaining 96 Iraqis including two members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia, the spokesman told reporters.

　　The US command reported Wednesday morning that a soldier from the 3rd Corp Support Command was killed in a bomb attack on his vehicle in the northern outskirts of Baghdad Tuesday afternoon.

　　The death brought to 68 the number of US soldiers killed in hostile fire since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

　　In a separate incident, a suicide car bomb exploded Tuesday night in Iraq's northern Kurdish city of Arbil, causing at least one Iraqi dead and dozens of others wounded.

　　Six American defense staff were among the wounded in the devastating blast at their rented office villa in the city, 380 kmnorth of Baghdad.

　　It was the fifth of a series of huge car bombings that rocked Iraq in a month, which killed over 120 including top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqueral-Hakim.

　　On Wednesday morning, several US soldiers were wounded when their convoy hit a mine on the road to western city of Fallujah, witnesses said.

　　Also on Wednesday, an American soldier in charge of defusing mines was killed in an operation, the US military said in a statement.

　　The soldier from the 1st Armored Division died when he went out of his vehicle to check an unexploded bomb by the road, it added.

　　On Sunday, Krivo said the U.S. military had completed a record 24-hour period with no American soldiers killed or wounded, while the unidentified attacks abated to the level of around a dozen a day.

　　Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel Wednesday aired a new video tape purportedly of al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and the second figure Ayman al-Zawahri.

　　The tape, probably recorded at the end of April or in early May, showed the two men walking in the mountains.

　　Bin Laden praised the suicide hijackers who crashed planes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon near Washington on Sept. 11, 2001: "Those men caused great damage to the enemy and disturbed their plans."

　　The channel also broadcast an audio tape claimed to be from al-Zawahri, who hailed Iraq's resistance against occupying forces.

　　"As long as people of Muslim nations, especially the Palestinians, feel unsafe, the Americans are unlikely to feel safe," a voice said in Arabic.

　　Aired on the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, it said that "On the eve of the second anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington we challenge the America Crusade, which is taking pain in Afghanistan and Iraq."

　　The voice supposed to be of the second terror person threatened more attacks on the US troops claiming "the true epic has not begun."

　　The release of the footage and the tape recording was almost simultaneous with a live broadcast of Bush's speech, boasting the progress in the two years of the war on terror.

　　While claiming the enemy is "wounded," Bush conceded at FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, that it is "still dangerous."

　　Ahmed Chalabi, president of the Iraq Governing Council (IGC), announced Wednesday that a delegation from the council is to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday.

　　Chalabi told reporters that Adnan Pachachi, an IGC member, and Hoshiar Zibari, the new foreign minister, will meet Annan in Geneva to discuss Iraq's return to the international community.

　　Chalabi expressed his expectations that Iraq, the war-ravaged country that is seeking to regain its natural position and membership in the United Nations, will reach the goal.

　　Set up in July under the US auspices, the IGC has exerted every efforts to regain Iraq's position in the international bodies and organizations that the former regime used to attend.

　　At a press conference here, Chalabi said Iraq had "not asked any country to send forces and that security should be preserved through the new Iraqi police and army after training."

　　He stressed that Iraq wants all forces to leave the country and tried to dissuade other countries from sending more troops.

　　President Bush announced on Sunday that Iraq had become the central battle front of the global war on terror, demanding a larger budget from the US congress and calling for additional 15,000 foreign troops contributed to the obligation of peace keeping in Iraq. Enditem