The U.S. military in Iraq launched an artillery barrage in southern Baghdad on Sunday against suspected insurgent targets, with two dozen loud explosions shaking the southern outskirts of the capital.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the morning blasts, which were heard across the city, were caused by U.S. artillery but declined to say what the target was.
Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad as part of a 10-week-old security crackdown to combat sectarian militias and insurgents.
The Iraqi police said the artillery was being fired from the U.S. Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad into the al-Buaitha neighborhood of Dora, a volatile district that is a Sunni insurgent stronghold.
U.S. military commanders say insurgents, including Sunni Islamist group al-Qaida, have regrouped in Baghdad’s outlying areas to launch attacks and build car-bombing networks that have caused mass casualties in recent weeks.
Artillery blasts have been heard in the evenings but they are rare in the daytime.
Insurgents detained
Meanwhile, coalition forces detained 72 suspected insurgents and seized nitric acid and other bomb-making materials during raids Sunday targeting the al-Qaida in Iraq network, the U.S. military said.
The early morning raids occurred in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital, and Salahuddin province, to the northwest, the military said in a brief statement.
The detainees included 36 suspected insurgents with alleged ties to al-Qaida in Iraq who were taken into custody in Samarra, a city in Salahuddin province that is 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
In the Anbar province city of Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, coalition forces found 20 five-gallon drums of nitric acid and other bomb-making materials, the statement said.
Since U.S. forces launched a Baghdad security crackdown in February, militant groups have stepped up their attacks in surrounding regions, including some with truck bombs loaded with chlorine gas.
“Coalition operations like these continue to chip away at the al-Qaida in Iraq network, and we will continue to target them as long as they continue to injure and kill the innocent people of Iraq,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman.
