US troops backed by a warplane killed 25 "terrorists" in a three-day operation near the Iraqi city of Baquba. The US military stated Wednesday that the operation was conducted between June 30 and July 2 near the town of Mukhisa, northeast of Baquba in the province of Diyala.
Some 10,000 US and Iraqi forces are currently deployed in Diyala as part of Operation Arrowhead Ripper targeting Al Qaeda strongholds in the province. "During a patrol along the Diyala River near Baquba, coalition forces were engaged by three men with rifles and military-style assault vests from across the river," the military said in a statement, cited by AFP.
"Coalition forces returned fire and the enemy fire subsided, but enemy reinforced its numbers and escalated to include rocket-propelled grenades." After determining that the fire was coming from an organized "terrorist" force that moved into a nearby palm grove, coalition forces fired on the enemy and called in close air support, it said.
"During the engagement coalition forces killed an estimated 25 terrorists and the enemy fire stopped," it said. "Throughout the firefight, a nearby mosque was broadcasting chants for local residents to rise up against the coalition forces; the chants were later replaced by a voice that seemed to be giving orders," the statement said.
Searches of the area during the operation uncovered weapons caches containing fire extinguishers rigged as improvised explosive devices, mortar rounds, rocket propelled grenade rounds, and small arms, the military said.
Meanwhile, two Iraqi journalists working with Sunni television network Baghdad TV were abducted and executed last month, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday. Mohammed Hilal Karji and Sarmad Hamdi Al Hassani were kidnapped separately and their bodies were later found in the morgue, the watchdog conveyed.
