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U.S. airstrikes kill 17 militants

As U.S. widens offensive, most al-Qaida leaders flee Baqubah.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 23, 2007

BAQUBAH, Iraq - American attack helicopters fired on al-Qaida militants trying to slip past an Iraqi checkpoint on Friday, killing 17 of them in the fourth day of an offensive to oust the fighters entrenched in this city an hour's drive north of Baghdad.

More than three-quarters of the city's al-Qaida leadership fled before the Americans moved in to Baqubah this week, U.S. officials said Friday, but not before drone planes spotted fighters planting dozens of roadside bombs on the main highway into the city, capital of the volatile and extremely dangerous Diyala province.

Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al-Qaida fighters remain.

"They're clearly in hiding, no question about it. But they're a hardline group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can, " Bednarek told the Associated Press and another news agency on Friday.

A day earlier operation battalion commanders met at a bombed-out hospital to plot their next moves.

Soldiers spread maps across rubble and pulled up charred concrete blocks as stools inside the crumbling building. Controlled explosions of roadside bombs boomed in the distance. Soldiers laden down by body armor mopped sweat from their faces.

"It's 24-7 for us here, and it's probably the same for our adversary as well, " Bednarek said. "It's house-to-house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer - and it's also cars, vans - we're searching every one of them."

Days before the offensive, unmanned U.S. drones recorded video of insurgents digging trenches with backhoes, said Maj. Robbie Parke, spokesman for the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division that is doing most of the fighting in western Baqubah.

About 30 roadside bombs - known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs - were planted on Route Coyote, the U.S. code name for a main Baqubah thoroughfare, said Parke, 36, from Rapid City, S.D. "So they knew we were coming."

Fast Facts:

U.N. weighs end to weapons searches

A proposed U.N. resolution would immediately end the work of U.N. inspection bodies which, under Saddam Hussein's regime, played a pivotal role in monitoring Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. Since 2005, the United States has been trying to get the Security Council to wrap up the work of the inspectors, who left Iraq just before the 2003 invasion and were barred by the U.S. from returning.

Hussein trial 'flawed': The trial of Saddam Hussein had "serious flaws" that fell short of international judicial standards in reaching death sentences for the former Iraqi president and two senior members of his regime, the group Human Rights Watch said Friday.

Iraq's debt: China said this week that it is forgiving debt owed by Iraq. But after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Friday, it was still unclear how much is being written off.

[Last modified June 23, 2007, 00:17:55]