(CNN) -- Iraqi troops Wednesday uncovered a kidnapping ring, seized weapons -- including three rockets -- and defused two roadside bombs after beginning a security clampdown on the often lawless streets of Baghdad. In the first day of the new government's push to restore order in the capital, Iraqi troops also enforced a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and issued a weapons ban for civilians. Four insurgents were detained at one checkpoint after three people emerged from a car "screaming for help," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "We found eight people that had been kidnapped now for four days that we were able to return back under control of the Iraqi government," Caldwell said. "They worked for an electrical company down south of Baghdad."
Iraq's ministries of Defense and Interior would not give specific numbers on how many troops were stationed across the city Wednesday, but it appeared to be fewer than the 70,000 that the Interior Ministry initially said it would deploy. (Watch the violence that inspired the Baghdad crackdown -- 1:56) Hours after the operation began, President Bush said at a news conference in Washington that 26,000 Iraqi troops and 23,000 Iraqi police will be backed by about 7,200 U.S.-led coalition troops.