Forty-two al-Qaida hostages freed in raid

US forces raided an al-Qaida hide-out north-east of Baghdad today and freed 42 Iraqis imprisoned inside, including some who had been tortured and suffered broken bones, a senior U.S. military official said.

The raid was part of a three-month-old security crackdown that included the deployment of 3,000 more US troops to Diyala, a violent province north of the capital that has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks, said Major General William Caldwell, the top US military spokesman in Iraq.

Caldwell said Iraqis told US forces about the hide-out: “The people in Diyala are speaking up against al-Qaida.”

He said the 42 freed Iraqis marked the largest number of captives ever found in a single al-Qaida prison. Some of those freed were held for as long as four months and some had injuries from torture and were taken to medical facilities for treatment, he said.

Two American soldiers were killed when explosions hit their patrols this weekend – one in Diyala and one in western Baghdad, the military reported today.

Also today, US and Iraqi troops raided Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, targeting Shiite insurgent cells there for a second day and arresting a suspect believed involved in smuggling armour piercing bombs from Iran, the military said. The cell has also sent Iraqi militants to Iran for training, the statement said.

During another raid in Sadr City, troops shot an approaching vehicle that ignored signals to stop, the military said. No one was injured in the shooting, but the vehicle was set ablaze, the military said.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who emerged from months in hiding last week, met today in Najaf with leaders of his movement to discuss Iraq’s security and political situation, said Salah al-Obeidi, a senior aide to al-Sadr.

“The occupation forces bear responsibility for the suffering the country is facing and there is no solution but the withdrawal of the forces,” said al-Obeidi, echoing demands al-Sadr made in the sermon he delivered after reappearing Friday.

Al-Sadr’s Shiite Mahdi Army militia has repeatedly battled with US and British troops in the streets of Sadr City and Basra, where British troops killed one of the cleric’s commanders in a gunfight on Friday.

After two days of pitched fighting with the Shiite militants, British soldiers carried out an arrest raid early today. During the raid, their forces were attacked with roadside bombs, rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire. The troops returned fire, killing three of their attackers and arresting four militants. No British forces were injured.

Meanwhile, in Kut, 100 miles south-east of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned this morning and handed over their weapons. They cited their fears of being targeted by Mahdi Army militants, police said.

Meanwhile gunmen in two cars threw concussion grenades at a popular market in northern Baghdad and then opened fire at shoppers, killing one person and injuring eight, police said. The gunmen later ambushed a minibus, killing the driver, stealing the vehicle and abducting six passengers, police said.

In other violence, gunmen shot up the car of Lt Col Hiyis al-Jubouri, a police commander in the northern Salahuddin province, killing him and another police officer, police said.

Gunmen also attacked a group of farmers in the al-Nahrawan district, 10 miles east of Baghdad, killing two and injuring nine, police said.