Iraqi government plans massive crackdown on rebels in capital
Meanwhile, US officials are investigating Thursday’s crash of a two-seat OH-58 Kiowa helicopter near Buhriz, a former Saddam Hussein stronghold about 35 miles north of Baghdad.
The armed US reconnaissance helicopter was supporting combat operations.
The US military said small-arms fire downed the helicopter, while another returned to base safely despite being hit.
At least 1,652 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.
Iraqi authorities are preparing the largest show of force in the capital since Saddam’s ousting in a bid to halt increasing militant attacks, which have killed more than 650 people since the new government was announced April 28.
More than 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers, backed by American troops and air support, will set up hundreds of checkpoints, raid houses and search vehicles in Operation Lightning.
A guard at an Azamiyah carpentry factory in northern Baghdad was killed yesterday when four mortar rounds landed on the building, said police lieutenant Sadoun Abdul Ridha. Four others were wounded.
Elsewhere, insurgents destroyed several sections of an oil pipeline on Baghdad’s western outskirts, near Abu Ghraib and TV footage showed jet black billowing clouds of smoke towering into the sky.
Iraqi authorities did not say how long Operation Lightning would last, and it was uncertain whether the Iraq security services are capable of mounting a sustained operation.
Iraq has 89,400 security personnel, including commando units, under the interior ministry’s control, according to the US military. The figure may include some deserters. Another 75,800 are in the Iraqi military, mostly the army.
“We will establish, with God’s help, an impenetrable blockade surrounding Baghdad like a bracelet surrounds a wrist,” Defence 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.
Iraqi police forces announced breakthroughs yesterday in investigating three car bomb attacks carried out this month.
Police paraded three men, including two brothers, before reporters who confessed to carrying out Monday’s car bomb attack outside an eastern Baghdad restaurant that killed at least eight people.
