U.S. Troops Target Car Bomb Cells In Iraq

Friday, May 11th 2007, 8:16 am

By: News On 6

BAGHDAD (AP) _ U.S.-led forces targeting car bombing networks across Iraq killed four suspected insurgents and detained nine others in a series of raids that ended Friday, the military said.

In one raid early Friday, troops acting on intelligence obtained in previous operations approached a building near Taji, an air base 12 miles north of Baghdad, suspected of housing a car bombing cell responsible for attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S.-led forces, the military said.

The troops came under fire from four armed men, whom they killed in a gunbattle, the military said. One of those killed was suspected of being a leader of the cell with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq's top leaders, the military said.

Recent U.S. raids in the area have targeted the terror network's leadership, including one that killed al-Qaida's top propagandist earlier this month.

The raids come as the military has been focusing on disrupting car bomb making factories after several recent attacks that have killed hundreds in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

U.S. officials say al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents are trying to provoke retaliatory violence from mainly Shiite militias, who had agreed to lay low to avoid confrontations with Americans during a 12-week-old security crackdown in the capital.

Forces also carried out raids in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul on Thursday and Friday, detaining a total of nine people suspected of producing bombs and smuggling foreign fighters into the country to carry out attacks against U.S. troops, the military said.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate bombing attacks, the military announced Friday. The deaths raised to at least 3,385, the members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The violence came as radical Shiite politicians pressed for legislation demanding a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal and a freeze on the number of foreign forces already in the country.

The proposed legislation, drafted by the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, parliamentary officials said Thursday.

The Sadrist bloc, which holds 30 parliamentary seats and sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this would be the first time it persuaded a majority of lawmakers to sign on.

The measure has not yet been introduced in parliament and was unlikely to be passed in its present form, but the signatures reflected growing disenchantment among the lawmakers over U.S. involvement in Iraq and the government's failure to curb the violence.

It also appeared part of a campaign by al-Sadr's followers to carve out a strong opposition position after they quit Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet last month over the government's refusal to demand a timetable for the U.S. to leave.

The White House questioned whether Sadrists had the votes in parliament.

``The president of Iraq, the vice presidents, and the prime minister all support keeping U.S. troops in Iraq,'' National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington. ``The Sadrists often makes these claims, yet rarely produce a bill, let alone a majority.''

Shiite parties still represented in the Cabinet are not eager for U.S. troops to leave until Iraqi forces are ready to take over security. Al-Maliki relies heavily on U.S. support to hold his fractious administration together.

Ali al-Adeeb, a senior Shiite lawmaker and confidant of al-Maliki, was skeptical about the wisdom of asking foreign forces to leave.

``Their withdrawal will not benefit anyone if our forces are not ready,'' al-Adeeb said. ``There must be a commitment from foreign parties to train our forces.''

Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said he supported the draft but only on condition that the withdrawal timetable be linked to a schedule for training and equipping Iraqi forces _ something he said the legislation did not include. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously in November to extend the U.S.-led forces' mandate until the end of 2007. The resolution, however, said the council ``will terminate this mandate earlier if requested by the government of Iraq.''