World

Security Sweep In Baghdad

May 30, 2005 / 7:35 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Iraqi forces swept through Baghdad on Sunday, erecting checkpoints and searching vehicles as they launched the largest offensive of its kind since Saddam Hussein's ouster, but insurgents hit back with suicide bombings and ambushes that killed at least 30 people, including a British soldier.

The first of more than 40,000 soldiers and police, who are being supported by U.S. forces, searched hundreds of vehicles and raided several houses, described as "terrorist dens" in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, arresting several suspects, army Capt. Ihssan Abdel-Hamza said.

Operation Lightning was launched as a direct challenge to the bloody wave of militant attacks that have killed more than 700 people since the April 28 announcement of Iraq's new Shiite-led government, according to an Associated Press count.

"We set up these checkpoints in order to arrest all those insurgents trying to destroy this country and we will hit them with an iron fist," said Iraqi army Sgt. Ali al-Khazali while manning a highway checkpoint in Dora.

Iraqi security forces, who are being supported by U.S. forces, will erect 675 checkpoints along with mobile checkpoints to try to deter assailants around the city and in areas where attacks are frequent, and begin street-to-street sweeps.

Baghdad will be divided into two sectors, Karkh on the west bank of the Tigris river that separates the city, and Risafa on the east. Karkh would be divided into 15 sub-districts and Risafa into seven sub-districts. Police and emergency personnel will operate 24 hours a day.

But despite the heavier than normal Iraqi police and army presence throughout the capital and on its southern and northern outskirts, insurgents kept up their steady pace of violence.

On CBS' Face The Nation, America's top general, Richard Myers, told Bob Schieffer that the last month in Iraq has been a violent one. But he insisted the country was not close to civil war, and that significant progress was being made in involving Iraqi forces in supervising the country's security operations.

"In this month, we have 35 operations ongoing, what we call major operations, 30 of them led by Iraqis and coalition working together, five of them led by the Iraqis themselves. So things are turning in terms of the Iraqi security forces. And in the end, obviously, they have to do this work,'' say Myers, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In other developments:

The U.S. military announced the end of Operation New Market, a four-day offensive centered on Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, aimed at disrupting insurgent activities. At least 14 insurgents were killed and more than 30 suspects detained in the operation, which also left two U.S. Marines dead.

In eastern Baghdad, a suicide attacker tried to ram a Volkswagen sedan packed with explosives through the gate of the heavily fortified Iraqi Oil Ministry Sunday afternoon, ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said. Guards fired on the car, which exploded about 20 yards from the gate, killing two security guards and wounding a policeman and passer-by.

U.S. forces also announced Sunday that a Marine was killed when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle the day before near Haqlaniyah, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad. At least 1,656 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.

Defying the Iraqi crackdown, insurgents attacked an army checkpoint in Youssifiyah, 10 miles south of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and injuring one, said Dr. Dawood Al Taaei of nearby Mahmoudiya hospital.

Gunmen also killed two police sergeants in a drive-by shooting Sunday in Dora, police Capt. Firas Qaiti said.

Two other police commandos were killed and five injured in a car bomb blast in Madain, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, police Col. Selam Mehmood said.

A suicide car bomber, apparently targeting a U.S. convoy, also exploded his vehicle Sunday and killed two Iraqis and injured nine others near the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the northern city of Tuz Khormato, police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.

The Iraqi government said the offensive would continue despite the violence.

"With the escalating operations by security forces, we expect such reactions coming to the surface, but this will have no affect on the operations," Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said during a press conference.

A British soldier also was killed Sunday when a British military convoy came under attack in southern Iraq, spokesman Capt. John McLean said, adding the death appeared to be the result of an explosion. He said others were injured but didn't give a number.

Iraqi police Lt. Karim Lueibi said British forces sealed off the attack scene, some 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, and a British helicopter was evacuating an unspecified number of casualties.

The bulk of Britain's 9,500-strong military deployment is based in southern Iraq, including at the main British headquarters in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. More than 80 British troops have been killed since the start of the Iraq war.