Middle East

US raids target al-Qaida in Iraq

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-28 18:20

No civilian or coalition injuries were reported.

In Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, US and Iraqi forces detained eight suspected insurgents and confiscated three caches of weapons during a raid on an apartment complex on April 22, including mortars, rockets and ammunition. The weapons appeared to be new and "were stamped with recent dates and Iranian markings," the military said.

The United States has frequently accused Iran of allowing insurgents to enter this country carrying weapons such as roadside bombs used to attack US and Iraqi convoys.

Deadly attacks, meanwhile, continued in the capital despite a US-Iraqi security operation that began on Feb. 14.

Saturday's deadliest attack in Baghdad occurred when gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in a Sunni-Shiite neighborhood, killing four of the seven people aboard, police said.

A police officer said an employee of the Iraq Red Crescent Society was among those killed, but the relief agency said it could not immediately confirm that.

The gunmen traveling in two cars began their 7 a.m. attack in Baiyaa, western Baghdad, by blocking a road to stop the SUV carrying the seven people, then opened fire on it, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. He said the victims apparently were heading to neighboring Syria.

At about 11:20 a.m., two mortar shells hit another residential area in western Baghdad, killing three Iraqi children - between the ages of 5 and 7, and wounding 10 Iraqis, including three children, police said.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded Saturday morning near city street cleaners working in Zafaraniyah, a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, killing one of them and wounding eight, police said.