Rebels Confront Baghdad Operation

Insurgents defied a much-touted military crackdown in the capital Sunday, targeting police checkpoints, the Oil Ministry and convoys of U.S. and Iraqi troops.

In at least five suicide bombings within six hours and an attack on a checkpoint, insurgents killed 20 members of the fledgling security forces. By the end of the day, militants had killed at least eight other Iraqis, pushing the death toll beyond 720 in the monthlong escalation of violence.

Armored sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks carrying Iraqi police and national guardsmen sped through the capital, drawing fire and scattering civilian drivers trying to keep a distance from the targeted convoys. Small-arms fire from insurgent ambushes in several Baghdad neighborhoods crackled throughout the day as the new government continued deploying what it said would be 40,000 police and troops.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari’s spokesman, Laith Kubba, said more than 500 arrests had been made in the first two days of the sweep, known as Operation Lightning. Iraqi and U.S. officials had predicted that militants launching daily suicide bombings and assassinations in Baghdad would flee the crackdown, announced Thursday.

Iraqi and U.S. officials had planned to erect about 675 checkpoints along the capital’s outskirts to prevent insurgents from fleeing, but they had not yet set up an effective cordon.

Instead, insurgents staged daring attacks across Baghdad, targeting the very checkpoints set up to ensnare them. In the deadliest attack, about 50 insurgents stormed a checkpoint, killing nine Iraqi troops attempting to monitor and search passing vehicles. The government said 14 insurgents were killed in the battle.

Kubba said the government would press on with the campaign, with street-by-street, house-to-house searches to flush out insurgents.

“Search operations and raids have allowed us to arrest 500 people and find arms caches in several houses,” he said.

Among the detainees, the U.S. military said, was a former general of Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia. The military did not identify the man who they said had been leading insurgent cells in Baghdad.

As for the militants’ bloody counteroffensive, Kubba said, “We were expecting reactions, but this will have no effect on the general course of the operation.”

As Iraqi police and soldiers scrambled to seal off the capital, some U.S. officials expressed concerns that the crackdown would lack “precision.” They feared it would further erode public support for Jafari’s government, which has witnessed a concerted challenge to its authority since its members took office May 3.

“One thing we’ve stressed with them is the need for precision,” a senior U.S. military official said of the raids. “You can’t just roll people up. It alienates them.”

Troops with the U.S.-led coalition are backing the raids, but officers have emphasized that Operation Lightning is an Iraqi-led mission. Outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which serves as the headquarters of the coalition and the Iraqi government, U.S. troops stood ready to help with the investigation of two suspected car bombs but received no request for assistance.

A visitor from Basra said the Iraqi display of force in Baghdad was little more than propaganda. “We saw nothing of this promised plan which had given us all hope of relief,” said Othman Ghanim, noting that his car had been neither stopped nor searched.

Shortly after dawn, a suicide attacker plowed his bomb-laden vehicle into a convoy of Iraqi special forces in Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, killing one policeman and a civilian.

Three hours later, two Iraqi commandos were killed by a car bomb in the same suburb.

Just before 1:30 p.m., another suicide car bomber crashed into the outer security barriers at the Oil Ministry, killing two guards and injuring six bystanders.

At 4 p.m., a car bomb killed three Iraqi policemen in the volatile Adhamiya district. In the Dora section, gunmen killed two police sergeants assigned to guard government officials. Near sunset, another bomber hit an Iraqi patrol, killing two policemen.

A car bomb apparently aimed at a U.S. military convoy in the city of Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk, killed two Iraqis.

In Baghdad, three bodies, two of them handcuffed, were found, apparently executed. A police identification card was found near one of the bodies.

In southern Iraq, near Basra where 8,000 British troops are based, a British soldier was killed when a roadside bomb detonated as his vehicle passed.

Meanwhile, a website used by Islamic militants carried a posting purportedly from alleged insurgent mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi in which he vowed to personally lead Al Qaeda loyalists in defeating the crackdown. The statement claimed responsibility for the attacks Sunday.

Zarqawi is reported to have been injured in a clash with coalition forces in mid-May. Postings on militant websites have described him variously as near death, undergoing treatment in Iran and leading the latest assaults. None could be verified.

The Jordanian-born extremist is believed to be spearheading the killings, kidnappings and beheadings in recent months. The Pentagon has offered a $25-million reward for information leading to his arrest.

In Washington, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, warned that capturing or killing Zarqawi would not halt the insurgency.

“Getting him probably won’t stop this jihad movement,” Myers said. “Al Qaeda will put somebody else into the breach. Whether they’ll be as effective as Zarqawi, we don’t know.”

The U.S. military command in Iraq announced that a campaign in the nation’s west aimed at hobbling the insurgency, Operation New Market, had wrapped up after four days. Fourteen militants were killed and more than 30 arrested, the military said in a statement. Two U.S. Marines died in the mission focused on Haditha, which the military says is a transit point for militants from other countries.

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Times staff writers Sonni Efron in Washington, Raheem Salman and Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad and Ali Windawi in Kirkuk contributed to this report.