Insurgents attack Italian embassy, no injuries reported; U.S. troops celebrate Thanksgiving By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Italian mission in Baghdad, damaging the building but causing no injuries, the U.S. military said Thursday, as some soldiers took time out to celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey dinners and games of football. In a political setback for the U.S.-led occupation, key figures in the powerful Shiite Muslim leadership criticized the U.S. plan to transfer power to Iraqis, saying elections should occur sooner than planned. The overnight attack on the Italian mission underscored the precarious security situation in the Iraqi capital, despite a reduction in attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces in recent days. Two weeks ago, a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb outside the Italian barracks in Nasiriyah, killing 19 Italians and 14 others in an apparent attempt to weaken the resolve of Washington's coalition partners. In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. troops on Wednesday killed a girl and injured three people in a pickup truck that was approaching American soldiers who had been shot at, the U.S. military said. No weapons were found in the truck. Assailants had fired at two shuttle buses traveling from a U.S. military compound, but no American troops were hurt. On Sunday, two U.S. soldiers were fatally shot in Mosul, which had been relatively peaceful until a recent upsurge in violence. In a respite from their daily grind Thursday, some American soldiers took time out from street patrols and their hunt for Iraqi guerrillas to celebrate Thanksgiving with races, concerts, games of American football and traditional dinners of turkey meat and cranberry sauce. On the political front, U.S.-led efforts to establish a sovereign Iraq with a stable government suffered a setback when two top Shiite Muslim leaders said they want elections sooner than March 15, 2005, part of a plan agreed to by the coalition and the coalition-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. The plan also calls for the creation of an interim administration by next July. In Iraq's holy city of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani feels that "real loopholes" in the plan "must be dealt with, otherwise the process will be deficient and will not meet the expectations of the people of Iraq," said Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite member of the Governing Council, after talks with al-Sistani. The ayatollah wields considerable influence among Shiites, who make up more than 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people. Al-Hakim heads the biggest Shiite political movement _ the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad declined comment on al-Sistani's reported remarks, saying the head of the administration, L. Paul Bremer, had no wish "to negotiate in public." Speaking on condition of anonymity, the spokesman said the Nov. 15 accord was a "framework" agreement and that "a lot of difficult details must still be worked out." A U.S. commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said the insurgents are trying to regroup after an aggressive U.S. campaign against them in recent days crippled their ability to attack American troops. "We're getting reports where there might be some people trying to come back in here and reorganize," Odierno said, adding: "They're trying to bring leadership from other parts of the country." Odierno had sharp words for Saddam, one of the world's most hunted fugitives: "He'll keep himself nice and warm and cozy as he can during the winter while the rest of his people suffer but we've got to try to keep him running so he can't be comfortable, he doesn't have enough kerosene, he doesn't have enough benzene, he doesn't have everything else to keep warm and I hope he has lost a lot of weight too." In Washington, U.S. defense officials announced that several thousand additional U.S. Marines would head to Iraq next year. The Pentagon had announced Nov. 6 that the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq would add up to about 105,000 after troop rotations are completed in May, but the additional marines appear to bump up that total to 110,000. Washington currently has 130,000 troops in Iraq.