As violence continued in Iraq Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, said that he was considering imposing martial law.
In the latest clash four US soldiers were reportedly killed in an ambush in Ramadi today.
A video delivered to Associated Press Television News showed the four, still in uniform, lying dead near what appeared to be a walled compound.
There was no immediate comment from US military command.
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Last night al-Jazeera broadcast a video purporting to show a South Korean hostage in Iraq pleading for his life.
Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, announced yesterday that he might impose martial law in parts of the country to fight insurgents and that he intended to resurrect aspects of Iraq’s former military.
“They are trying to destroy our country and we are not going to allow this,” he said.
“We might impose some kind of martial law in some places if necessary in accordance with the law and in respect to the human rights and the international law,” he said.
But Senator Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed concern over the idea, saying that Iraqi troops were not strong enough to enforce it and that US forces could be dragged into doing so.
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“A government should never lay down an order they can’t enforce,” Mr Biden said on ABC television.
“I am positive that Allawi is not in a position to enforce such a law now, without the United States doing it,” he said.
Saying that he was eager to bolster Iraq’s own security forces, the prime minister made a plea for other countries to send troops and donate military hardware.
“Until our forces are fully capable we will continue to need support from our friends,” Mr Allawi told reporters.
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He added that the May 2003 decision to disband the Iraqi Army was a mistake.
The replacement army being trained by the United States has come under repeated attack as Mr Allawi’s interim government prepares for the handover of sovereignty from the US-led invasion coalition at the end of the month.
The incoming government is considering an amnesty for Iraqi guerrillas who haven’t taken direct roles in killings of coalition soldiers or Iraqis, Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib told reporters.
A security plan announced by Mr Allawi focused on a strengthening of the Iraqi military, bolstering its role in fighting the insurgency. US administrators had envisaged the new Iraqi military as a small force, meant solely to deal with external threats rather than violence within Iraq’s borders.
The paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defence Corps - which US administrators created as a force distinct from the military to battle insurgents - would be redesigned as a national guard force and placed under army control, along with border guards and other independent units.
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The country would also build an army special forces capacity and an Iraqi Intervention Force for counterinsurgency operations.
The chief duties of Iraq’s fledgling air force, with just two small surveillance aircraft, would be to monitor oil pipelines, power lines and borders, Mr Allawi said.
As a last resort, he said that he would send Iraq’s Army, meant to protect the country against foreign invasion, to fight the guerrillas.