By Jamal Hashim

    BAGHDAD, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi signed a new Iraqi security law which gives him wider powersto declare a state of emergency when necessary as insurgency surged in Baghdad on Wednesday.

    Iraqi Minister of Justice Malik Dohan al-Hassan and Minister of Human Rights Bukhtiar Amen briefed reporters of the new security measures at a press conference here Wednesday morning.

    Amin said, "The lives of the Iraqi people are in danger. They are in danger from evil forces, from terrorists."

    The new "National Safety Law" grants Allawi the right to declarea state of emergency, issue arrest warrants, ban political groups,restrict movement of foreigners and impose curfews, according to a copy distributed on Wednesday.

    Approved by the cabinet and obtained a warrant from an Iraqi court, Allawi has the right to declaring martial law in "any area of Iraq where people face a threat to their lives," the text of thelaw reads.

    A state of emergency cannot last more than 60 days and must be ended as soon as the danger is over, but it can be renewed every 30days with a letter of approval by the prime minister, the presidentand deputy presidents.

    "We realize this law might restrict some liberties, but there are a number of guarantees," al-Hassan said. "We have tried to guarantee justice and also to guarantee human rights."

    There is a need to fight the insurgents who are "preventing government employees from attending their jobs, preventing foreign workers from entering the country to help rebuild Iraq and in general trying to derail general elections," he said.

    The new law, however, forbids the prime minister from exercisingmartial power in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq without consulting local Kurdish officials.

    In central Baghdad, street clashes broke out shortly before the announcement of the "National Safty Law" as insurgents opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at US troops and Iraqi security forces, killing two national guarsdmen and wounding 21 others.

    The three-hour heavy fighting erupted when the Iraqi national guards tried to enter the Saddamiyat al-Karkh neighborhood near Haifa Street for a search, witnesses told a Xinhua correspondent atthe scene.

    Gunfire and explosions reverberated in central Baghdad as both sides traded fire.

    US troops rushed to the scene to back the Iraqi forces, but theywere forced to withdraw immediatly after coming under attack.

    In another show of insecurity in Baghdad, three mortar rounds exploded near Allawi's residence on Wednesday morning, wounding three men and a woman.

    The blasts on al Zaitoon Street near the so-called Green Zone incentral Baghdad also hit a nearby house, an Iraqi Interior Ministryofficial said. Allawi was not at home at the time of the blasts, he added.

    The Green Zone, a heavily-fortified area that harbored the dissolved US-led coalition, houses the largest US embassy in the world as well as the new Iraqi government.

    The area was frequently targeted by insurgents with mortar rounds, rockets and car bombs during the past 14 months.

    Elsewhere in Iraq, four US Marines were killed by insurgents in hostile action west of Baghdad Tuesday, said a US military statement on Wednesday.

    The Marines were killed while "conducting security and stabilityoperations" in the main city of al-Anbar province, al-Ramadi, some 100 km west of Baghdad, according to the statement.

    The area along the Syrian and Jordanian borders is the bastion of insurgents who oppose the presence of multinational forces on Iraq's soil.

    Over 860 US servicemen have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003, according to the figure provided by the Pentagon. Enditem