WASHINGTON. I^cb 1 : About 70 k rrortsl attacks haw been committed against na lions In the coalition against Iraq since the Gulf war beffin January 17. the stale department said Thursday, reports AFP

Most of the attacks have caused material damage only, and were launched by Isolated groups with no known links to Iraq. department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said.

But in some eases those

claiming responsibility said they had acted out of solidarity with Iraq or opposition to the United Slates.

The casualties so for have been a bank security guard who was shot and killed In Lebanon January 23 and an Iraqi national who was killed January 19 when a bomb he was carrying near a US cultural center in Manila blew up. Another Iraqi was injured in that blast.

Three incidents have been

repro ted over the past 24 hours In Yemen, a backer of Iraq. Bursts of automatic weapons fire hit the compound of the US Embassy in the capital city Sanaa, a grenade was thrown at the residence ol Ila-Turkish Ambassador, leaving one person injured, and there was an explosion outside the residence of the Japanese ambassadors.

In the Peruvian capital Lima, a pair of bombs destroyed a monument to the late US President John F. Kennedy while a weaker explosive shook a US cultural center. The US State Department said it suspected ProCuban rebels of the Tupac Amaru revolutionary front.

Elsewhere, the French cul tural center in Amman was practically destroyed by a fin-set by arsonists.

In the Philippines, police defused two bombs at a relay station belonging to the Voice of America, and a small explosion rattled a building housing the Saudi Embassy

In Santiago, Chile, an incendiary bomb damaged a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank. In Beirut, a stick of dy-namlts blew up near the Embassy of Qatar.

The State Department said it could not confirm that Wednesday's killing in Ankara of a security official for the Turkish Prime Minister was linked to the Gulf war.

Another report says : Suspected rebels fired three mortar rounds al the US Embassy Thursday In an attack police linked to the Gulf war. police said. No Injuries were reported.

It came a day after rebels hurled home made bombs at a monument to the late US President John F. Kennedy, a US-Pcruvlan cultural centre and the Italian embassy to protest the Gulf war.

The mortar rounds in Thursday's incident were fired from a distance of 60 meters (yards) and hit the embassy's parking lol, police said.

Officials blamed the ProCuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary . movement, one of Peru's two main Guerilla organisations.