US raids kill 41 rebels in Iraq

American forces killed more than 40 insurgents, and a known al-Qaida operative, in five raids south of Baghdad.

Militants downed a US helicopter during the fighting, killing the two soldiers aboard, the US command said today.

The raids took place over the weekend in an area commonly known as the “Triangle of Death” because of the large number of insurgent attacks.

Rebels also launched new attacks today. They fired more than 30 mortar rounds at a British military camp in southern Iraq, wounding four soldiers.

Elsewhere, 19 Iraqi Iraqis were killed, including eight police officers in southern Basra and one in a roadside bomb attack that hit an oil tanker in Baghdad, sending a large plume of black smoke billowing over the capital.

Four of the US military raids occurred on Saturday and Sunday around Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, the US command said.

American soldiers and helicopters killed 16 suspected al Qaida rebels, including one militant who allegedly had led an April 1 militant attack that downed an AH-64 U.S. Apache helicopter and killed the two soldiers aboard in the Youssifiyah area, about 12 miles south of Baghdad.

A new al-Qaida group had claimed responsibility for downing that Apache and posted a gruesome video on the web showing men dragging the burning body of what appeared to be an American soldier across a field as they shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great".

During the Latifiyah raids, US forces killed al-Qaida member Abu Mustafa and 15 other suspected al-Qaida associates, the US command said. Abu Mustafa was wanted for “his leadership role” in the shooting down of an Apache helicopter on April 1, they added.

The weekend raids also wounded four Iraqi civilians and two suspected militants, and detained eight suspected insurgents, the military said. The wounded included two women, one of whom was pregnant, and two children, the US military said. All of them were treated or were evacuated to an American military hospital.

On Saturday, two British soldiers were killed and one was wounded by a roadside bomb as they patrolled in their armoured vehicle north of Basra city.

On May 6, four British soldiers died when their helicopter crashed in Basra, apparently downed by a missile. The attack triggered a confrontation in which jubilant Iraqi residents pelted British rescuers with stones, hurled firebombs and shouted slogans in support of a radical Shiite cleric. Five Iraqi civilians, including a child, died and about 30 were wounded in the melee as Shiite gunmen and British soldiers exchange.

A total of 111 British service personnel have died since US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.