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.