41 insurgents killed in Iraq over 2 days

BAGHDAD -- US and Iraqi forces continued targeting Sunni insurgents in the city of Baqubah, north of Baghdad yesterday, the second day of a major offensive aimed at stamping out the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

About 10,000 US and Iraqi troops are participating in the offensive, called Arrowhead Ripper, which began early Tuesday in Diyala Province, a Sunni-Shi'iteKurdish province north and east of Baghdad that in recent months has become an Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold and the most violent area in the country outside the capital. Forty-one insurgents and one US soldier were killed in two days of fighting, the US military said yesterday.

"We have found three warehouses and factories where car bombs cars were built, as well as large stashes of TNT and mortar rounds used to make" roadside bombs, said Major General Mohammed al-Askari, spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry. "We also found the swords that they used to slaughter people in their so-called courts, in addition to sniper rifles and silencers."

The US military said in a statement that five weapons caches had been discovered, and 25 roadside bombs and five booby-trapped houses have been discovered and destroyed.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, US military spokesman, said the military was investigating the mistaken bombing of a house in the Khatoon neighborhood of Baqubah yesterday. The bombing occurred when soldiers decided to destroy a heavily booby-trapped residence with an aircraft bomb, but the bomb hit the wrong house, Garver said. He said it was unknown whether there were any casualties in the strike. Later, a helicopter destroyed the correct house with a Hellfire missile, Garver said, and there were large secondary explosions.

Askari said the offensive "has developed greatly" and coalition forces were starting a "second phase by surrounding and isolating the areas in which the terrorists are located."

The US military has been criticized -- particularly from within its own ranks -- for conducting previous offensives against Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents that allowed them to slip away and regroup in other areas. As soon as US forces withdrew, the insurgents typically returned.

This time, military planners are trying to avoid that mistake by drawing a tight ring around Baqubah that locks insurgents inside. The challenge was illustrated on Tuesday by the capture of six uninjured men trying to escape from the town in an Iraqi ambulance, the US military said in a statement.

Commanders "said we need to cordon off the city and control access in and out, which is what we did yesterday morning, and now we are very deliberately doing house-to-house clearing," said Captain Jon Korneliussen, US military spokesman. "Many houses were wired with explosives."