/ 5 October 2007

US says 37 Iraqi militants killed

A United States air strike killed about 25 suspected Iraqi militants linked to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias on Friday and another 12 al-Qaeda fighters were killed in separate raids, the US military said.

US troops said they were engaged in a heavy firefight west of Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad, during a dawn raid against a commander it said was linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Qods force.

The US military also said it had killed 12 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters during separate strikes in Baghdad and Yusifiya north of the capital on Friday.

In Salahuddin, next to Diyala, police said Sheikh Muawiya Jebara, a Sunni Arab tribal leader who had worked with US forces in forming local police units to fight Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda, had died of wounds suffered in a bomb attack on Thursday.

US commanders in Iraq have often accused Shi’ite Iran of training and arming Shi’ite militias in Iraq and supplying them with weapons, including rockets and roadside bombs, by far the biggest killers of US troops in Iraq.

Tehran denies the charge and blames the sectarian violence in Iraq, in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, on the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

‘Hostile intent’

In the Baquba operation, support aircraft were called in when US soldiers came under attack from militants, with one insurgent thought to have an anti-aircraft weapon.

”Perceiving hostile intent, support aircraft engaged, killing an estimated 25 criminals and destroying two buildings,” the US military said in a statement.

Police and hospital sources said 25 people were killed and another 35 wounded in the US air strike in the village of Jezan al-Imam near Khalis, a town north-west of Baquba. They said four houses were also destroyed.

Police sources said most of the dead were men, disputing Iraqi television reports that women and children were among civilian casualties.

The operation early on Friday targeted what the US military called a ”special groups” commander, a term it often uses to describe militants it says are linked to Iran.

”Intelligence indicates he was responsible for facilitating criminal activity and is involved in the movement of various weapons from Iran to Baghdad,” the statement said.

It did not say whether the man was among those killed.

While not specifically linking the man to the Mehdi Army militia loyal to fiery anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the US military said it welcomed Sadr’s pledge in late August to suspend all Mehdi Army operations for up to six months.

”We will not show the same restraint against those criminals who dishonour this pledge by attacking security forces and Iraqi citizens,” the statement said.

In Samarra in Salahuddin province, an Iraqi government security source said Iraqi soldiers and police killed 18 gunmen and arrested 38 during raids targeting al-Qaeda fighters on Thursday and Friday.

The US military began a security crackdown in Baghdad in mid-February which then spread into other volatile areas across Iraq using a ”surge” of 30 000 extra US troops in support of thousands of Iraqi security forces.

The crackdown is aimed at Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda and Shi’ite militias and has been credited for a significant drop in military and civilian casualties in recent weeks. — Reuters