Iraq: Around 1,000 US and Iraqi troops swept through the western town of Haditha yesterday, searching homes and seizing suspects in an anti-insurgent raid that comes after a surge in militant attacks.
The US military said American marines, sailors and Iraqi soldiers were involved in the operation, dubbed New Market, which saw troops descend on the Euphrates river town northwest of Baghdad before dawn, backed by US helicopters.
Meanwhile Iraq has asked the UN Security Council to let a US-led multinational force remain in Iraq, acknowledging it was as yet unable to assure its own security.
The request came in a letter from foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari circulated at the United Nations in New York.
"As we stand now, our country continues to face an armed insurgency, which still includes foreign elements opposed to Iraq's transition to democratic rule," Mr Zebari said in the letter to Danish ambassador Ellen Loj, the Security Council president for May.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council on June 8th, 2004, set out a timetable for Iraq's transition to a democratically elected government, authorised the US-led force, and called for a review of the force's mandate either at the request of the government or within 12 months - whichever came earlier.
The resolution did not require any council vote - only a review. Yesterday's operation in Haditha is the second major offensive in the area this month as US forces try to staunch the insurgency in western Iraq, where militants such as Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are believed to be hiding.
In a posting on an Islamist website, al Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by Zarqawi, said its fighters had clashed with US troops in Haditha. It said its militants "fought glorious battles with crusaders and their agents", referring to US and Iraqi forces.
The US military confirmed the clashes and said it had killed 10 insurgents in separate clashes and discovered a small weapons cache. Two US marines were wounded.
"Local citizens identified one of the attackers killed as an imam [prayer leader]," the US military said in a statement.
"The imam was firing on marines and Iraqi security forces with an AK-47 assault rifle."
The operation came a day after another Islamist website carried a posting saying Zarqawi, America's most-wanted man in Iraq and with a $25 million bounty on his head, had been wounded in fighting, although it did not say where, when or how.
Insurgent attacks have soared nationwide over the past month, since the formation of a Shia-led government, with more than 600 Iraqis and dozens of US troops killed. Violence between Iraq's main Muslim sects has also increased.
Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people 200km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad in the Euphrates valley, sits on a major supply route between Syria and the rebel stronghold of Ramadi and has long been suspected of being a militant haven.
There was fresh violence in Baghdad, which has been hit by a string of car bombings in the past three days. A driver detonated a car near a police patrol in the Dora district, killing two people and wounding 11.
In the northern Iraqi town of Sharqat, the police chief was killed by gunmen who ambushed his car.
In Ramadi, southeast of Haditha, clashes between US troops and insurgents left three people dead and seven wounded, according to Munem Aftan, a local doctor.