The US military deployed 10,000 soldiers backed by attack helicopters in a big offensive against the al-Qaeda north of Baghdad on Tuesday as a truck bomber struck in the capital, killing 75 people near a Shi’ite mosque.
The offensive against the al-Qaeda around the city of Baquba in Diyala province, a stronghold of the Sunni Islamist group, is partly aimed at taking down car bomb networks that cause carnage in Baghdad and other regions of Iraq. It is one of the biggest military operations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One witness said a suicide bomber driving a truck rammed his vehicle into the Shi’ite Khilani mosque in Baghdad, destroying one of its walls and damaging the rest of the structure.
The toll
The police said that 75 people had been killed and 130 people wounded. Rescuers dragged bodies from the mosque while the charred remains of others could be seen in burned out mini buses.
It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since a car bomb on April 18 killed 140 near a market.
The explosion followed a relatively quiet period in Baghdad after a four-day curfew was imposed last week in the wake of an attack on a revered Shi’ite shrine in the city of Samarra. The US military said that 22 militants were killed in the early hours of the offensive against the al-Qaeda around Baquba.
“The end state is to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people,” Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general, operations, 25th Infantry Division, said in a statement.
Major crackdown
“That is the number one, bottom-line, up-front, in-your-face, task and purpose.”
The US military commanders said that they were taking advantage of the completion of a build-up of American forces in Iraq under a crackdown in Baghdad that began four months ago. The crackdown has forced many militants to move to areas around the capital.
The statement said that about 10,000 US soldiers, backed by attack helicopters and armoured fighting vehicles, were taking part in ‘Operation Arrowhead Ripper’.
It did not say how long the offensive would last. But it coincides with smaller operations launched in recent days against the al-Qaeda in Iraq targets around Baghdad.
“It’s certainly one of the largest since the end of ground operations in 2003,” said US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver when asked to describe the significance of the operation.
Residents in Baquba, capital of Diyala, said heavy explosions had been echoing around the city since before dawn. Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad, was under total curfew, they added.