www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15034566
BAGHDAD, Iraq - American troops killed eight people - four of them women - after taking heavy fire during a raid Wednesday on a suspected terrorist's house northeast of Baghdad, the US command said. But relatives of the dead disputed the US account, saying their family had nothing to do with any terrorist group. Outside the pockmarked house, which relatives said belonged to Mohammed Jassim, bullet casings littered the ground and blood stained the sand. Family members cried and consoled one another as the bodies of the women were taken away. "This is an ugly criminal act by the US soldiers against Iraqi citizens," Manal Jassim, who lost her parents and other relatives in the attack, told Associated Press Television News. Iraq's major Sunni clerical organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the raid as a "terrorist massacre." The attack in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, came as a new poll by the State Department and independent researchers indicated a strong majority of Iraqis want US-led military forces to withdraw immediately from the country.
obtained by The Washington Post, showed, for example, that nearly three-quarters of Baghdad residents would feel safer if the US and other foreign forces left Iraq with 65 percent favoring an immediate pullout. More violence during Ramadan The top US military spokesman in Iraq, Maj Gen. William B Caldwell, told reporters there had been a spike in violence in Baghdad with the onset of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which officially began on Monday. Suicide attacks were at their highest level ever, he said without giving figures. The terrorists and illegal armed groups are punching back in an effort to discredit the government of Iraq and more specifically the Baghdad security plan," Caldwell said.
False rumors, leads mark hunt for bin Laden Since mid-July, 29 death squad cell leaders and 254 members have been killed or captured, Caldwell said. There were 14 operations in the past week, resulting in two cell leaders and 42 members killed or captured. "Iraqi security forces are making a concerted effort to defeat the insurgency and stop sectarian violence," Caldwell said. "Specifically Iraqi security forces are taking the fight to death squads within the Baghdad area." On Wednesday alone, the bodies of 15 people found in various areas outside Baghdad were delivered to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of the capital. Most showed signs of torture and had their hands and legs bound; Operation Together Forward, a security drive to clear the capital neighborhood by neighborhood, was launched this summer after US generals warned sectarian violence was leading toward civil war. Sweeps have been started or completed in about half the neighborhoods of the capital. As part of the infrastructure rebuilding component, 66 million cubic feet of trash has been removed from the streets, Caldwell said. Operation successful, military says There is a noticeable difference in the neighborhoods that have been targeted, Caldwell said. "When you look at the areas we've operated in, Dora used to be the highest amount of murders and executions within the entire city of Baghdad, and today now it's really probably the lowest level within the entire city because of the operations," he said. In the southern city of Basra, British and Iraqi troops launched a security operation Wednesday aimed at rooting out corrupt police, pacifying the city and helping residents rebuild, the British military said. Some 2,300 Iraqi army troops and 1,000 British soldiers started Operation Sinbad, with 2,000 more British troops conducting operations in the surrounding area, said British forces spokesman Maj Charlie Burbridge. A key component of the operation is a crackdown on police corruption, he said. Since January 2005, the predominantly Shiite city has fallen under the influence of Shiite militias, which have infiltrated police and local government institutions. In June, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in Basra following a rise in violence among mostly Shiite groups competing for power. In Baghdad, meanwhile, the prime minister's military office said a leader of the militant 1920 Revolution Brigades was arrested Tuesday in the village of al-Jazira. The group is believed to be responsible for numerous attacks against US forces and a series of kidnappings. Another leader of the group and seven aides were arrested Saturday in the same area, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
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