Baghdad, Iraq – U.S. troops raided a suspected al-Qaeda hideout Tuesday, killing 10 insurgents – three of them wearing suicide vests – as American forces stepped up the hunt for the group’s leader, terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
American troops searched for “an al-Qaeda terrorist leader” in the predawn raid at a safehouse about 25 miles southwest of the U.S. air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, the military said.
The raid unfolded when troops surprised a guard and shot him before he could fire his pistol, the military said.
As the insurgent fell, he detonated a suicide vest. Two more insurgents were killed inside the hideout and the others outside as they tried to escape. Two of the dead also were found wearing explosive vests. One insurgent was wounded.
The statement did not say whether al-Zarqawi was the target of the raid or whether anyone escaped.
It was the fourth raid reported by the U.S. command against al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda-in-Iraq network since April 16, when American troops stormed a house in Youssifiyah, just south of the capital, killing six people, including a woman, and arresting five people, among them an unidentified al-Qaeda official.
Stepped-up operations against al-Zarqawi’s network are taking place as U.S. and Iraqi officials are making overtures to other Sunni Arab groups, hoping to persuade them to abandon the insurgency and join the political process under a new government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
Last weekend, President Jalal Talabani said officials from his office had met with insurgent representatives and he was hopeful they might agree to a deal. Talabani also said American officials had met with insurgents.
U.S. officials have confirmed meeting Iraqis linked to the Sunni Arab insurgency but have avoided identifying them. Last month, however, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad attributed a sharp drop in U.S. deaths in March to an ongoing dialogue with disaffected Sunnis.
On Tuesday, a leading Arabic language newspaper said Khalilzad had met with insurgent representatives in Amman, Jordan, on Jan. 16 and later in Baghdad on seven occasions.
The newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, attributed the information to an unidentified insurgent official.
The official was quoted as saying the insurgents presented several demands, including a halt to military operations, an end to arrests of “innocent Iraqis” and the release of prisoners “who were arrested unjustly.”
