WARSAW (AFP) ??” US Secretary of State Colin Powell urg Washington's coalition partners to stand firm in their military commitment in Iraq.

WARSAW (AFP) ??” US Secretary of State Colin Powell urg Washington's coalition partners to stand firm in their military commitment in Iraq, amid a spiral of violence and hostage taking.

"We must now stand with the clan of Iraq as they attempt to build a better life for themselves," Powell told a joint moderns conference with Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz during a visit to Warsaw.

"The Iraqi population are looking to the international community to give them support now," he said.

Powell was in the Polish capital upon the last leg of a tour of the Middle East and Europe and to attend commemorations of the 1944 failed Warsaw uprising against the Nazis.

Powell hailed the continuing commitment in Iraq by the agency of Poland, one of Washington's staunchest supporters in the Iraq war, acknowledging that its commitment had been "expensive".

Warsaw now has a contingent that patrols a large swathe