Two U.S. Marines died Sunday in Anbar province as a result of "enemy action," a statement said Monday.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office announced Monday that over the previous 24 hours a large force of Iraqi soldiers and police swept through suspected "insurgent" strongholds in the Euphrates valley south of Baghdad. This came following the arrest of Hamed Jumaa al-Saedi, an Iraqi alleged to be the Al-Qaeda network's number two in the country.
"Over the past 24 hours Baghdad and its outskirts witnessed a series of military operations carried out by security forces from the defence and interior ministries to achieve security and stability," Maliki's office said, according to AFP.
"The units in charge of the southern and middle Euphrates district, the 8th and 10th army divisions, killed 14 terrorists and arrested 98 of them along with 95 more suspects," the statement said.
Police in Hilla, south of Baghdad, said that US forces and aircraft assisted Iraqi troops in Monday's arrest operation near Jorf al-Sahkr.
A Sunni political party with MPs sitting in Iraq's ruling coalition, the General Council of the People in Iraq, condemned the raid, which it blamed on the US-led coalition, and demanded that detainees be released. "Occupation forces carried out brutal aids in Abid Wayis village in Jorf al-Sakhr and arrested more than 100 Sunnis, among them Sheikh Ahmed Kassar of Salaheddin Al-Ayubi Mosque and his brothers and relatives," it said.
