The US military said yesterday it had destroyed two bunkers suspected of being used by insurgents to store weapons and plan attacks as seven members of Iraq's security forces were wounded in two separate bombings.
US forces destroyed a former Republican Guard bunker system in the Yusifiyah area southwest of the capital on Thursday following a tip-off by local residents and surveillance of the site, said a military statement.
It said the bunker, located in an area that housed a major part of former president Saddam Hussein's former military-industrial complex, was being used by insurgents to store ammunition.
AP PHOTO: AP
"Coalition Forces engaged the complex with five high-precision smart-bombs," it said.
"Secondary detonations emanating from inside the complex" continued for about six hours after the strike, the statement added.
On Sunday, US troops destroyed a bunker system built in an abandoned rock quarry in Karmah, near the former rebel bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad, which had been found four days earlier.
About 150kg of plastic explosives were used to destroy the network and the weapons stored inside, the military said, adding that 12 weapons caches were also found within an 8km radius of the bunker.
The whole complex was 170m wide and 275m long or bigger than four football pitches and fresh food inside showed the hideout had been recently inhabited.
Fully furnished living spaces were found in the warren, along with a kitchen, showers and an air conditioner, hi-tech combat equipment such as night vision goggles and a large haul of weapons and ammunition.
As US and Iraqi forces pressed on with Operation Lightning aimed at routing out insurgents in Baghdad and surrounding areas, rebels struck again yesterday.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and two wounded in a mortar attack against an Iraqi police checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, said a police source.
Five civilians, including two children, died in a similar attack in Mosul on Sunday said the US military without giving details.
Three members of the elite Iraqi commando force were wounded in a car bombing in the capital's southwestern Al-Amil neighborhood, said an interior ministry source.
Earlier, four Iraqi soldiers were wounded when a suicide car bomber blew himself up at the entrance of a joint US-Iraqi security coordination center in Tikrit, Saddam's home town north of Baghdad, said local police.
A US soldier died on Sunday after his patrol was struck by a roadside bomb near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, the US military said.
The latest death toll of US service personnel killed in Iraq to 1,670, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.
More than 1,200 suspects have been arrested since the launch of the Operation Lightning offensive at the end of last month, one of the bloodiest months since the US-led invasion of March 2003 that saw about 700 Iraqis killed in a frenzy of attacks throughout the country.
Both US and Iraqi officials blame the ongoing insurgency on Saddam loyalists and foreign militants bent on waging jihad, or holy war, against foreign troops and those perceived as collaborating with them.
The Iraqi government announced on Sunday the arrest in Mosul of two senior members of the organization of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of the al-Qaeda terror network in Iraq.
Zarqawi, who has US$25 million-bounty on his head, is believed to have been wounded, but the severity of his wounds are not immediately known.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN that unrest was likely to continue even if Iraqi or US forces capture Zarqawi.
Iran, which fought a war with Saddam's Iraq between 1980 and 1988, announced on Sunday that Tehran had handed over its accusations against the former Iraqi dictator to the court that will try him, according to state television.
The Iraqi government said on Sunday it would bring 12 charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam although there were more than 500 possible cases against the ousted dictator.
"We are completely confident that the 12 fully documented charges that have been brought against him are more than sufficient to ensure he receives the maximum sentence," said government spokesman Leith Kubba.
Saddam, whose regime was toppled in April 2003 and who is now in US custody in Iraq awaiting trial, could face the death penalty if found guilty.
His trial should begin within two months, Kubba said.
Saddam faces a litany of accusations, including a 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, the fierce repression of a 1991 Shiite rebellion and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
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