Iraqi authorities pressed yesterday with Operation Lightning in Baghdad after presenting an initial tally of the dragnet's success, following a surge of violence in the north of the country.
Iraqi authorities arrested 20 "terrorists" in Baghdad yesterday as part of an ongoing military operation, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.
The arrests brought to 720 the number of suspected insurgents detained since Operation Lighting was launched last Sunday, the spokesman, Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.
The national television channel al-Iraqiya reported that another 136 arrests occurred in Hillah, south of Baghdad.
Quanties of weapons were also seized.
At least 28 people have been killed in the five-day operation.
However, 10 Iraqis were killed in an overnight suicide bombing in a remote village north of Baghdad, officials said yesterday, taking the number of people killed during a bloody day of violence in the north to almost 50.
Thursday's carnage claimed the lives of at least 49 people, including more than 30 in four suicide bombings across the north and a Shiite cleric in the southern city of Basra.
Police and relatives said yesterday that Ali Abdul-Hussein, the imam of a Shiite mosque in Basra, was shot outside his house on Thursday night by two gunmen who then escaped in a car.
At least 825 people, including U.S. forces, have been killed since the new Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
Dozens of Shiite and Sunni clerics have been assassinated in recent months, and some religious groups say the killings are an attempt to provoke sectarian civil war in Iraq.
Baghdad residents reported some additional mobile checkpoints by interior ministry commandos and combined patrols of Iraqi and US special forces have searched suspected insurgent areas while Apache attack helicopters flew sorties over several parts of the city.
But while the aircraft occasionally dropped flares to protect against ground attacks, there was little evidence of major US participation in the offensive, and in many areas of the city, life carried on as usual.
Up to 40,000 army troops and police personnel were to take part in the sweep, but Baghdad streets were filled more often with a motley collection of dusty foreign-built cars than with armored Humvees or heavily-armed personnel carriers.
"There is no limit to its duration. It will track terrorists, and eliminate their hideouts and car bomb workshops to halt the attacks and murders," an interior ministry official said.
Arrests were reported elsewhere in the country as well.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, police reportedly arrested Anwar Abdel Karim al-Saadun, the brother of a former regional Baath party chief along with three other suspects.
His brother, Abdel Baqi Abdel Karim, is on the US list of 55 most-wanted former regime figures and is still on the run.
Police also captured two former Baath party members accused of killing 43 Shiites during the 1991 revolt against former president Saddam Hussein, the police chief in the southern city of Karbala said.
In a another development, two Iraqi civilians were killed when their vehicle was in collision with a US armored personnel carrier near Khalis in Diyala Province, bordering Baghdad, the US military said yesterday.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS