US and Iraqi troops launch airborne swoop of insurgent resistance

Heliborne US and Iraqi troops pressed their sweep through a 100-square-mile section of central Iraq today in a bid to break up a centre of insurgent resistance, the US military said. No casualties were reported on either side.

“We believe we achieved tactical surprise,” Lt. Col. Edward Loomis, spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, said of the day-old Operation Swarmer, biggest air assault in Iraq in three years. He said about 40 suspects were detained, 10 of whom were later released.

In tense Baghdad, meanwhile, drive-by gunmen targeting streams of Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed three people and wounded five in Sunni areas of the city.

Devout Shiites were heading south to the holy city of Karbala for a religious holiday, a pilgrimage that authorities feared would present “soft” targets in the continuing Sunni-Shiite violence affecting Iraq.

A stand-off between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority underlies the political impasse blocking formation of a new government of national unity. An all-party meeting was scheduled for later today to try to move those negotiations forward.

The joint US-Iraqi air assault yesterday focused on a 10-by-10-mile area some 60 miles north of Baghdad and north-east of the city of Samarra, where an insurgent bombing on February 22 badly damaged a major Shiite shrine, an attack that ignited days of sectarian bloodshed across Iraq in which more than 500 people died.

Fifty US transport and attack helicopters ferried in and gave cover to 1,500 US and Iraqi troops taking part in Operation Swarmer – units of the 101st Airborne Division and the Iraqi 4th Division.

This morning, Loomis said, the forces “continue to move” through the area. “Approximately 40 suspected insurgents were detained without resistance,” he said. “Tactical interviews began immediately, and 10 detainees have been released.”

The sweep also uncovered six weapons caches, the US military spokesman said.

The operation was aimed at disrupting “terrorist activity in and around Samarra, Adwar and Salahuddin province,” he said, an area that was a stronghold of Sunni support for Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baathist party regime.

Saddam’s former No.2, Izzat Ibrahim, who was deputy chairman of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council, was from the city of Adwar and is still at large - at times thought to remain in that area.

The deputy governor of Salahuddin province, Abdullah Hussein, said 48 alleged insurgents had been detained, men accused of bombings and kidnappings.

He said intelligence indicated about 200 insurgents were in the area, including people linked to the Baathist group Jaish Mohammed – Mohammed’s Army - and to the al Qaida in Iraq terror group, led by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

The sweep was aimed particularly at capturing two local leaders of the Zarqawi group, said a police official. He said they had not yet been located.

Iraqi officials said Salahuddin province became more important as an insurgent centre after the US offensive that seized the resistance stronghold of Fallujah in late 2004, and subsequent US-Iraqi offensives in other western areas close to the Syrian border.

Today’s Baghdad bloodshed began as groups of Shiite faithful, many parents with children in tow, trekked down city streets in the morning, headed for the southbound highway and Karbala, a shrine city 50 miles south.

At about 7.30am, men in a BMW being driven alongside pilgrims in the western district of Adil opened fire, killing three and wounding two, said police Lt. Thair Mahmoud.

Police later reported a second incident, also in western Baghdad, in which armed men riding in a car fired on pilgrims near Um al-Tuboul Square, wounding three.

Such attacks were feared this pilgrimage weekend as Sunni-Shiite tensions heighten across the strife-torn country. To help guard against violence in Shiite holy cities, the UDS military dispatched a fresh battalion of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armoured Division, about 700 troops, to Iraq from its base in Kuwait to provide extra security.

Tens of thousands of devout Shiites are converging on Karbala for Monday’s celebration of Arbaeen, marking the end of the 40-day mourning period after the date of the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, killed in Karbala in 680AD.

On the political front, Iraq’s new Parliament held its first session yesterday, as the first permanent elected legislature since the US invasion, which began three years ago this coming Monday.

The politicians immediately adjourned, however, after taking their oaths of office, since the deep-seated sectarian disputes have all but paralysed efforts to name a prime minister and Cabinet.

The US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been trying to broker talks to establish a government embracing major factions in a way acceptable to Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs in Parliament.