US troops bid to smash crime gang

HUNDREDS of US soldiers raided a northern Iraqi town yesterday in a bid to smash a crime ring wanted for murder, gunrunning and a terrorist attack on a police station that killed a US soldier earlier this month.

The toll of US troops killed in postwar Iraq yesterday surpassed the number killed in major combat, reaching 140 with the death of a soldier in a roadside bombing and another in a traffic accident.

In yesterday’s raid, soldiers backed by tanks, helicopters and Bradley fighting vehicles stormed Khalis, 42 miles north of Baghdad, hunting for the gang’s notorious leader, Lateef Hamed al-Kubaishat.

Soldiers caught 24 members of the “terrorist organisation” but Lateef appeared to have eluded capture, Colonel David Hogg said.

“Their primary focus is probably criminal activity, but they have attacked coalition forces through direct and indirect means,” Col Hogg said.

“As long as he (Lateef) is in place we will not be able to establish the conditions for Iraqi police to establish law and order in the area.”

The gang claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded outside police headquarters in nearby Baqouba on August 10, killing one US military policeman.

Lateef is also accused of selling weapons, burning down the Baqouba courthouse to destroy criminal records and murdering a prostitute whom he accused of providing services to US troops in the area. He was serving multiple life sentences for murder until Saddam Hussein granted amnesty to all prisoners.

US Army officers in the area say they are being attacked by Ba’ath Party loyalists, Fedayeen Saddam militia fighters and criminal gangs who want the region to remain unstable so they can carry out their activities unhindered.

When US President George W Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, the death toll of Americans stood at 138. Since then, 140 more soldiers have died, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the Iraq war began on March 20 is 278. One of the soldiers killed yesterday was riding in a support convoy hit by a bomb in the town of Hamariyah, 16 miles northwest of Baghdad.