75,000 troops in Baghdad security crackdown

Iraq’s prime minister has set in motion the biggest security crackdown in Baghdad since the US-led invasion, with 75,000 Iraqi and US troops to deploy across the capital from today.

Prime minister Nouri Maliki also announced plans for an extended curfew and a weapons ban, saying he would show “no mercy” to terrorists six days after al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike north-east of Baghdad. The government did not say how long the crackdown would last.