The Iraqi government announced a package of new security measures Wednesday allowing the prime minister to announce martial law in chaotic areas in an effort to put down the insurgency plaguing the country.

The law gives interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite Muslim, broad rights. After he receives unanimous approval from the Presidential Council, he can act to assign curfews to specific areas, to conduct cordon and search operations and detain individuals with weapons on them. It also empowers authorities to freeze the assets of suspects and monitor their communications.

The Presidential Council is made up of a president, who is a Sunni Arab, and two vice presidents, a Kurd and a Shi'ite. Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds are the three main groups in Iraq.

The law also lets Allawi assign governors, including military leaders, to be in charge of specific areas.

But even as the government took its first decisive move to quell the chaos, a rash of violence broke out throughout the capital.

Masked insurgents and Iraqi forces backed by US troops and helicopters waged a running gun battle in the streets near Martyrs' Square, the Interior Ministry said.

At least four people were killed and 20 others injured in the massive battle, according to Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official.

US armored personnel carriers moved to the scene of the fighting on the deserted Haifa street as two Apache helicopters hovered overhead. Interior Ministry officials said the helicopters fired on nearby buildings.

In another Baghdad neighborhood, four mortar rounds shook an area near the headquarters of Allawi's political party yesterday morning, wounding six people, an Interior Ministry official said.

The mortar attack near Allawi's headquarters marked the second time the premier's Iraqi National Accord party was targeted. In the days before US officials handed over power to his interim government on June 28, insurgents overran Allawi's party offices in Baqouba, an insurgent hotspot north of the capital, Baghdad. No one was hurt in that assault.

Allawi and his government had delayed the announcement of the law on several occasions, suggesting some disagreement within the cabinet over its provisions.

Also yesterday, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for an attack on US forces in western Baghdad earlier this week, according to a statement posted on an Islamic website.

The military wing of al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group claimed 100 of its fighters attacked US forces on Monday in al-Saqlawiyah, 45 miles (70 kilometers) west of the Iraqi capital, in the restive Anbar province.

The United States is offering US$25 million for information leading to the capture of al-Zarqawi, believed to be behind a series of deadly attacks on security forces.

In another development, an armed vigilante group, calling itself "Salvation Movement," threatened on Tuesday to kill al-Zarqawi if he does not leave the country.

(China Daily July 8, 2004)