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US destroys Iraqi insurgent bunker
The US military said Monday it had smashed two bunkers in Iraq that served as insurgent lairs, while 15 Iraqis were killed in an unyielding spate of attacks.US forces destroyed a former Republican Guard bunker system in the Yusifiyah area southwest of the capital on Thursday following a tip-off by local residents and surveillance of the site, said a military statement. It said the bunker, located in an area that housed a large part of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's former military-industrial complex, was being used by insurgents to store ammunition. "Coalition forces engaged the complex with five high-precision smart-bombs," it said. "Secondary detonations emanating from inside the complex" continued for about six hours after the strike, the statement added. On Sunday, US troops destroyed another bunker system built in an abandoned rock quarry in Karmah, near the former rebel bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad, which had been found four days earlier. About 150kg of plastic explosives were used to destroy the network and the weapons stored inside, the military said, adding that 12 weapons caches were also found within an 8km radius of the bunker. The whole complex was 170m wide and 275m long or bigger than four football pitches and fresh food inside showed the hideout had been recently inhabited. Fully furnished living spaces were found in the warren, along with a kitchen, showers and an air conditioner, hi-tech combat equipment such as night vision goggles and a large haul of weapons and ammunition. As US and Iraqi forces pressed on with Operation Lightning aimed at routing out insurgents in Baghdad and surrounding areas, rebels struck again Monday against their favoured targets. At least 15 Iraqis and one US soldier have been killed in attacks since late Sunday, according to the US military and Iraqi security sources. An Iraqi civilian was killed and two wounded in a mortar attack against an Iraqi police checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Five civilians, including two children, died Sunday in a similar attack west of Mosul, the US military said without giving details. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in an attack on their checkpoint near Samarra, north of Baghdad, police said. Nine Iraqi soldiers were wounded in suicide car bomb attacks in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, north of the capital, and Haswa to the south, said Iraqi security sources. Three members of the elite Iraqi commando force were wounded in a car bombing in the capital's southwestern Al-Amil neighbourhood, said a source at the interior ministry. The US soldier died Sunday after his patrol was struck by a roadside bomb near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, the US military said. The Iraqi government said its forces rounded up 89 suspects in raids in and around Baghdad since late Sunday as part of Operation Lightning. This brings to over 1,300 the number of those detained since the launch of the operation at the end of May, one of the bloodiest months since the US-led invasion of March 2003 that saw almost 700 Iraqis killed in a frenzy of attacks throughout the country. Both US and Iraqi officials blame the ongoing insurgency on Saddam loyalists and foreign militants bent on waging jihad, or holy war, against foreign troops and those perceived as collaborating with them. Meanwhile, Iraq offered a reward of US$50,000 for information leading to the arrest of Abu Abdullah al-Shafi, the alleged leader of Ansar al-Sunna, a group tied to the Al-Qaeda terror network. "Intelligence sources believe that foreign Arabs under the direct control of al Shafi actively recruit and train terrorists," a government statement said. The interior ministry had announced Sunday the arrest in the northern city of Mosul of two senior members of the organisation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN television that unrest was likely to continue even if Iraqi or US forces capture Zarqawi. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-06-06 |
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