More than 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers, backed by US troops and air support, will set up hundreds of checkpoints, raid houses and search vehicles as part of Operation Lightning, Iraqi's interior and defense ministers announced Thursday.
Meanwhile, two US soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down and crashed in central Iraq, the military said Friday, as the government announces a massive crackdown against insurgents in Baghdad.
US investigators are probing Thursday's mishap involving a two-seater OH-58 Kiowa helicopter that crashed near Buhriz, a former Saddam stronghold about 60km north of Baghdad.
Iraqi authorities are preparing to launch the largest show of force since Saddam's ouster in the capital in a bid to curb the rampant insurgency, which has killed more than 650 people since the country's new government was announced April 28.
In a reminder of the deadly insurgency, violence claimed at least 15 lives Thursday across Iraq, including a car bomb blast in northern Baghdad's Shula neighborhood that killed five people, including three police.
Army official Sadiq Jaafar said yesterday that police raided two Baghdad homes overnight and detained four suspects, including three brothers, over the Shula bombing, which also wounded 17 people, said army Staff Brigadier Sadiq Jaafar.
Another ambush targeting a police patrol, this time in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killed one policeman and a bystander caught in the crossfire yesterday, said police Brigadier Saeed Ahmed.
The policeman was killed in a car bomb blast targeting his patrol, while gunbattles that broke out between police and insurgents left an Iraqi civilian dead, Ahmed said. Five police were wounded.
American authorities are investigating the killing of three Iraqis who died when US soldiers shot at their van in southeastern Baghdad on Thursday, military spokesman Master Sergeant Greg Kaufman said.
The military said small arms fire forced the Kiowa helicopter to crash, while another returned to base safely despite being hit, said Harper.
The armed US reconnaissance helicopters were flying in support of combat operations in Buhriz. The slain soldiers were with Task Force Liberty, under the command of the Tikrit-based 42nd Infantry Division.
Iraqi authorities did not say how long Operation Lightning would last, and it was uncertain if the Iraq security services are capable of mounting a sustained operation.
Iraq has 89,400 security personnel, including commando units, with Interior Ministry, according to the US military. The figure may include some deserters. Another 75,800 forces are in the military, mostly the army.
"We will establish, with God's help, an impenetrable blockade surrounding Baghdad like a bracelet surrounds a wrist," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said.
Baghdad will be divided into two sectors, Karkh on the west bank of the Tigris river that separates the city, and Risafa on the east. Karkh will be split into 15 sub-districts and Risafa into seven. Security forces will operate 24 hours a day.
Northwest of Baghdad, in the city of Haditha, more than 1,000 US troops continued a sweep for insurgents responsible for attacks against coalition troops. They ordered at least one airstrike Thursday against a suspected militant position. At least 11 insurgents and one Marine have been killed since Operation New Market began Wednesday.
Some of the insurgents in Haditha are believed loyal to Iraq's most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose fate has been the subject of intense discussions this week from Baghdad to the Internet to Washington.
The Iraqi interior and defense ministers said Thursday the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has been wounded, confirming several Internet statements making the same claim this week.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS