BAGHDAD — The U.S. military announced Monday that it had killed three suspected terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq and captured 30 more in a series of operations in central and northern Iraq between Saturday and early Monday.
The United States still considers the group its chief obstacle to establishing security in Iraq, but U.S. military leaders have been encouraged by the series of successful strikes.
The blows against the group in the past three days came after strikes last week near Lake Tharthar in northern Salahaddin province in which the military said 19 suspected leaders of the group were killed. Those strikes also killed 15 civilians.
On Saturday, U.S. forces killed the three suspected terrorists in an airstrike on two boats southwest of Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. launched the attack after a man under surveillance boarded a boat and later rendezvoused with a second craft, and people aboard began transferring weapons and equipment, officials said. Ground forces discovered an arms cache at a site connected to one of the men aboard.
For much of the year, the U.S. command in Baghdad has described operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq as its “main effort.” Many units sent to Iraq as part of the U.S. troop buildup earlier this year were stationed outside the capital at an area known as the Baghdad Belts to focus on eliminating safe havens used by insurgents affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, as many as five civilians were killed and 20 wounded in clashes between Shiite militants and Western military forces in the southern city of Diwaniyah, including a number of children, according to police.
The fighting began Monday with shelling of U.S. and Polish military bases in the region, and it lasted for at least an hour. U.S. forces launched airstrikes in return.
There were no immediate reports of casualties among the military, but police and hospital sources said up to five civilians were killed and 20 were wounded. It was not clear if the civilian injuries resulted from the initial militants’ attacks or from the military’s return fire.
In the southern city of Basra, the body of Baghdad University professor Amin Abdul-Aziz was found in a street. He was kidnapped from his home in Basra last week.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove a car laden with explosives into the Harthiya Square area, where children were playing to celebrate the end of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, killing four and wounding 25, police said.
