BAGHDAD - At least 12 insurgents were killed and three US soldiers wounded Monday in a helicopter raid on an Al Qaeda hideout, a US military statement said. The insurgents were killed and three were arrested in a joint Iraqi-US force assault on the Al Qaeda hideout on the outskirts of Samarra, 110 kilometres north of Baghdad, according to the statement. A fourth person was identified as a hostage being held for ransom by the insurgents. The three US soldiers were wounded in the operation.Hamad Hamud Al Qaysi, the governor of the province of Salahaddin, in which Samarra is located, said the leader of Al Qaeda in the province and 13 of his followers were killed in the raid. Al Qaysi named the Al Qaeda leader as Abu-Ubayda Al Jazairi, an Algerian national.
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In Tikrit, US forces killed three people in two separate incidents, Ahmad said. Two of the casualties were truck drivers who were killed when a US force stormed a house. In a separate incident, a car mechanic was killed by US troops near his workshop, Ahmad said.