US launches major Iraq offensive

About 10,000 US soldiers using heavily armoured Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles fought their way into an al-Qa'ida sanctuary north-east of Baghdad early today.

American and Iraqi forces, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 insurgents, the military said.

The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said in a statement. The operation was still in its opening stages, it said.

The commander of Iraqi military operations in Diyala, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, said that handcuffs, swords and electricity cables - apparently used as torture implements - had been seized from militant safe houses in the area.

The operation was part of new US and Iraqi attacks on Baghdad's northern and southern flanks, which military officials said were aimed at clearing out Sunni insurgents, al-Qa'ida fighters and Shiite militiamen who had fled from the capital and Anbar during a four-month-old security operation.

A top US military official said that American forces were taking advantage of the arrival of the final brigade of 30,000 additional US troops to open the concerted attacks.

"We are going into the areas that have been sanctuaries of al-Qa'ida and other extremists to take them on and weed them out, to help get the areas clear and to really take on al-Qa'ida," the senior official said.

"Those are areas in the belts around Baghdad, some parts in Anbar province and specifically Diyala province."

Al Qaida has proven to be an extremely agile foe for US and Iraqi forces, as shown by its ability to transfer major operations to Baqouba from Anbar province, the sprawling desert region in western Iraq. There is no guarantee that driving the organisation out of current sanctuaries would prevent it from migrating to other regions to continue the fight.

In recent months, the verdant orange and palm groves of Diyala have become one of the most fiercely-contested regions in Iraq. The province is a tangle of Shiite and Sunni villages that has played into the hands of al-Qa'ida and allied militants who have melted into the tense region and sought to inflame existing sectarian troubles.

Al Qaida has conducted public executions in the Baqouba main square and otherwise sought to enforce an extreme Taliban-style Islamic code. The terror organisation's actions in the province have caused some Sunni militants, al-Qa'ida's natural allies, to turn their guns on the group with American assistance and blessing. Some militant Shiites are likewise joining government forces in a bid to oust the foreign fighters and Muslim extremists.