Troops raid ‘triangle of death’ in bid to clear insurgent hotbeds

SOME 5,000 US and British troops with Iraqi commandos launched raids and arrested suspected insurgents yesterday in an offensive aimed at clearing a swathe of insurgent hotbeds south of Baghdad.

In other violence, masked gunmen assassinated a Sunni cleric north of Baghdad - the second such killing in as many days - and insurgents hit a US convoy with a roadside bomb near the central Iraq city of Samarra, prompting the Americans to open fire, killing an Iraqi, hospital officials said.

The new offensive was the third large-scale military assault this month aimed at suppressing Iraq’s persistent insurgency ahead of crucial elections set for January 30.

The region of dusty, small towns south of the capital has become known as the ‘triangle of death’ for the frequent attacks by car bombs, rockets, and small arms on US and Iraqi forces and for frequent ambushes on travellers. The military said violence has surged in the area in recent weeks in an apparent attempt to divert attention away from the US assault on Fallujah.

They have been aided by British Black Watch Regiment, which was brought to the area from southern Basra to aid US forces in closing off militant escape routes between Baghdad, Babil province to the south and Anbar province to the west.

The slain Sunni cleric, Sheik Ghalib Ali al-Zuhairi, was shot as he left a mosque in the town of Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, said police Colonel Raisan Hussein. Mr Al-Zuhairi was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group that has called for a boycott of nationwide elections.

A day earlier, gunmen assassinated another prominent Sunni cleric in the northern city of Mosul - Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, who was the brother of the group’s spokesman.

Meanwhile, a top aide to radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the government of violating terms of the August agreement that ended an uprising by al-Sadr’s followers in Najaf.