BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iraqi forces raided suspected insurgent safe houses near Baghdad International Airport yesterday, arresting at least 100 suspected militants, including foreign fighters, the U.S. military said.
U.S. troops, meanwhile, marked Independence Day with barbecues, horseshoes, volleyball and — for those who had access — dips in a pool. At Al Asad Air Base in western Anbar province, a special “pig pickin’” dinner was served, but the full pig was cooked in a kitchen instead of being roasted on a spit.
President Bush, speaking at West Virginia University yesterday, said the insurgents in Iraq will not stop democracy in that country and U.S. forces will stay “until the fight is won.”
“Terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom,” he said.
Also yesterday, the family of Egypt’s top envoy to Iraq pleaded for the diplomat’s speedy release after his weekend abduction in Baghdad. Speaking from Cairo, the family said it had heard nothing about his whereabouts. Ihab al-Sheriff’s abduction was an apparent bid to dissuade Arab governments from strengthening ties with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
A car bomb detonated by remote control in Baghdad killed two civilians, including one woman, and wounded four persons, police said. Elsewhere, four gunmen killed a senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Party’s Mosul branch, a party spokesman said. Jirjis Mohammed Amin was shot inside his sister’s home in the northern city.
A second attack by gunmen in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killed a bodyguard of the provincial Nineveh governor, police said. He was killed in front of his home.
In the Iraqi capital, about 600 Iraqi and 250 U.S. troops took part in Operation Muthana Strike, which started early yesterday and targeted purported insurgent safe houses in neighborhoods near Baghdad International Airport, the military said.
Among those arrested were Egyptian suspects, the military said.
The raid, which the military said was based on tips from local residents, was designed to detain suspects, seize illegal weapons and gain intelligence to disrupt attacks.
“The success of the Iraqi army demonstrates their level of training and high commitment to rid Iraq of terrorists,” said Col. Kenneth Roberts. “I am proud of our Iraqi counterparts.”
A U.S.-Iraqi patrol came under fire Sunday south of Baghdad, killing five Iraqi soldiers and wounding three, the U.S. military said yesterday. No American casualties were reported. Up to 40 insurgency suspects were captured after the attack in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad.
Elsewhere, gunmen in Baghdad killed an Iraqi painting contractor who worked at a U.S. military base, doctors said. Omar Othman and a friend were driving on Baghdad’s dangerous airport road yesterday when the assailants opened fire. Mr. Othman’s friend was wounded.
The Iraqi army also found the beheaded corpse of an unidentified man with his hands tied behind his back yesterday in Bani Zaid village, north of Baghdad, police said.
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