The Hindu : International : 500 detained in security sweep of Baghdad

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Monday, May 30, 2005

International

International

500 detained in security sweep of Baghdad

Iraqi forces take battle for the nation's capital to the militants

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces took the battle for Baghdad to the militants on Sunday, netting 500 in an unprecedented domestic sweep of the capital's mean streets, as new bomb blasts killed nine soldiers and two civilians.

``Search operations and raids have allowed us to arrest 500 people and find arms caches in several houses,'' government spokesman Leith Kubba said as Operation Lightning was unleashed in the baking heat of the violence-weary city.

``Terrorist networks are having trouble moving around Baghdad and other regions,'' he claimed.

Flak-jacketed soldiers and police, some masked to avoid reprisals, carried out detailed vehicle searches, focusing on white Volkswagen Passat sedans known locally as ``Brazilians'' following a tip that some were packed with explosives.

The high profile and tough talk was quickly tempered however by two suicide bombings that killed nine soldiers and two civilians.

Baghdad has become the scene of many such bombings and Iraqi forces must prove the massive operation involving 40,000 soldiers and police can halt insurgent attacks in the capital.

More than 650 have died in bombings and shootings nationwide this month alone, unusually high even by Iraq's bloody standards.

A British soldier was also killed in a bomb blast in southern Iraq on Sunday, while the U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. Marine, who was slain in a homemade bomb attack northwest of Baghdad. The military also announced the end of a massive four-day offensive in western Iraq.

But despite the heavier than normal Iraqi police and army presence throughout the capital and on its southern and northern outskirts, insurgents kept up their steady pace of violence.

Suicide attack

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb outside the heavily fortified Iraqi Oil Ministry and killed two security guards and wounded a policeman and passer-by, said Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad.

The blast happened at about 1:20 p.m. local time when the militant tried to ram a late model Volkswagen sedan packed with explosives through the gate of the ministry building, located in eastern Baghdad, Mr. Jihad said.

Before dawn, insurgents attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Youssifiyah, 20 km south of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and injuring one, said Dr. Dawood Al Taaei of nearby Mahmoudiya hospital.

Gunmen killed two police sergeants employed by the Iraqi Cabinet in a drive-by shooting on Sunday in Dora, said police Capt. Firas Qaiti.

Another two police commandos were killed and five injured in a car bomb blast at 11 a.m. at Madain about 20 km southeast of Baghdad, police Col. Selam Mehmood.

A suicide car bomber, apparently targeting a U.S. convoy, exploded his vehicle Sunday and killed two Iraqis and injured nine others in northern Iraq, said police Brig. Sarhat Qadir. The attack happened near the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Tuz Khormato, south of Kirkuk, 290 km north of Baghdad, said Brig. Qadir.

``With the escalating operations by security forces, we expect such reactions coming to the surface, but this will have no affect on the operations,'' Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said.

The first of more than 40,000 soldiers and police deployed to Baghdad's streets early Sunday, erecting scores of checkpoints on the southern and northern outskirts of the city in the largest Iraqi-led offensive launched since Saddam Hussein's ouster two years ago. Iraqi security forces searched hundreds of vehicles and raided several houses, described as ``terrorist dens'' in Dora, arresting several suspects. — AP, AFP

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