Tens of thousands of Iraqi and United States soldiers on Monday swept through Baghdad’s western suburbs, arresting almost 300 suspected insurgents, in the largest such military operation to date.
The US military said the raid was aimed at quelling a recent upsurge in car-bomb attacks in the violence-plagued capital, which have averaged almost one per day this month.
”Coalition forces, in conjunction with the Iraqi army and ministry of interior forces, have detained 285 suspected terrorists in the western Baghdad district of Abu Ghraib in less than 24 hours,” a US military statement said.
The operation, code-named Squeeze Play, kicked off on Sunday and involves more than 15 000 Iraqi forces from 18 army battalions, 13 special police battalions and other police forces, it said.
”More than 20 000 US soldiers from five brigade combat teams are involved in shaping and supporting the operation,” it added.
The sweep, which is expected to be ”ongoing for a while”, was ”very carefully planned” and involved ”aggressive search-and-cordon operations”, said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a spokesperson for US forces.
”This is the largest combined operation with Iraqi security forces to date,” according to Lieutenant Colonel Clifford Kent, another spokesperson.
”The Iraqi security forces have the lead in this operation while we perform shaping and supporting roles,” the US military said.
One of the main objectives of the operation is to ”reduce the amount of vehicle bombs in the city”, the military added.
Dozens of car bombs have exploded in the Iraqi capital over the past four weeks, coinciding with the formation of a new Shi’ite-led government headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.
In May alone, there were more than 21 car-bomb explosions in the capital, most of them suicide attacks, compared with 25 for the whole of 2004, according to a senior US military officer who declined to be identified.
From late February to mid-May, 126 car bombs exploded or were discovered in the capital, he added.
Another car bomb went off Monday at lunchtime near a popular restaurant in a busy Shi’ite area of northern Baghdad.
At least seven people were killed and more than 80 wounded. The injured were taken to Kindi hospital, doctors said.
The blast, believed to have been set off by remote control, struck the Jamila neighbourhood, destroying 15 vehicles and damaging 22 more.
While the number of those killed or wounded in the recent onslaught is not known, Iraqi authorities have suggested that more than 500 people have died this month nationwide.
”By the end of the summer, the terrorists will be captured, dead or, in the least, severely disrupted, because of Iraqi security forces’ efforts in this operation,” said Colonel Joseph DiSalvo, a coalition commander in Baghdad.
The area swept by US and Iraqi forces since Sunday includes neighbourhoods where many of the attacks carried out daily on the airport road are thought to originate.
Convoys carrying US troops, private security guards, foreign contractors and journalists are frequently hit on the airport road, a 12km stretch nicknamed the ”Death Strip”.
Meanwhile, leaflets signed by an al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group were handed out on Monday in the southern Baghdad district of Dura, security sources said.
”We call on all members of the police and of the army of miscreants to give up working with the forces of apostasy,” said the leaflet signed by the group headed by Jordanian-born extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The leaflet, whose authenticity could not be verified, threatened police and soldiers with death, warning: ”We know where you live.”
A similar leaflet was posted last week in Samarra, north of Baghdad. — Sapa-AFP