Ninety-two seized in massive US operation against guerrillas

US troops arrested 92 people and seized weapons and ammunition in two dozen raids, including the largest-ever joint operation with Iraqi police, the US military said today.

The operations were aimed at capturing those responsible for a series of deadly attacks against American forces.

The raids were launched in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, and in other Sunni Muslim areas, Major Gordon Tate said. Those arrested included 12 men suspected of being behind a series of recent attacks against US troops in the Tikrit area.

Troops also seized weapons including Kalashnikov rifles, mortars and their firing tubes, 155 mm artillery shells and multiple rocket launchers.

In another incident, troops killed one Iraqi and captured three others in a shootout nine miles south of Balad, US officials said. Soldiers found two M-16 rifles which belonged to two American soldiers who were abducted and killed in June, officials said.

The joint US-Iraqi raid involved more than 200 American-trained Iraqi police and dozens of soldiers from the US Army’s 720th Military Police Battalion. The Iraqis were trained by the MPs.

“The people we went after are the trigger-pullers attacking the coalition,” said Lt Col David Poirier.

“We want to send the message that if you pull the trigger on the coalition, we will get you.”

He said the operations were designed to “break the back of the Fedayeen” in the Tikrit area.

“They are off-balance, on the run, they know we are after them and that the Iraqi police are after them,” he said.

US troops have carried out dozens of raids, mostly at night, over the past two weeks, arresting men who have funded those known by the US military as the trigger-pullers.

They also have uncovered weapons caches, including two of the biggest found to date last Saturday.

They included nearly three-dozen heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, mortars and a ton of explosives used to make bombs.