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.