US-Iraqi forces forge ahead with rebel crackdown

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US and Iraqi forces swept rebel bastions south of Baghdad and pounded positions held by Iraq's most wanted, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, in Fallujah, pressing on with a promised anti-insurgency crackdown as Iraq again took centre stage in the US presidential race.
And on the second day of a surprise visit, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw countered widespread scepticism that the war-torn country's tough-talking prime minister Iyad Allawi could stabilise Iraq in time for elections set for January.
The US military announced in a statement overnight that it had launched its largest operation to date in the Babil province south of Baghdad, in a bid to dismantle insurgent cells there and cut off the western rebel enclave from some of its rear bases.
"While rounding up 30 suspects during the initial sweep, the Iraqis and their American allies seized a suspected insurgent training camp and took control of the Jurf Kas Sukr bridge," it said.
"The bridge, spanning the Euphrates southwest of Baghdad, is believed to be a favoured corridor for insurgents moving into and out of key cities, including the capital hub and the current (rebel) sanctuary of Fallujah," the military added.
In an almost daily occurrence, US warplanes also pounded Fallujah directly overnight, hitting what it described as a meeting of ring leaders loyal to Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq.
There was no immediate report of any casualties after the raid.
The theocratic enclave has been off-limits to ground troops for months and its retaking is supposed to mark the climax of a bid by Allawi's government and his US allies to reclaim the country's lawless hotspots ahead of the January vote.
In a similar thrust, thousands of US-Iraq forces thrust into the rebel stronghold of Samarra last week, killing more than a hundred insurgents.
On Wednesday, elite Iraqi units and US troops were continuing their sweep for wanted militants whilst pressing on with emergency reconstruction work in the battle-scarred city.
A US officer told an AFP reporter on the ground that electricity would be back at 90 percent capacity by Thursday and children would be able to return to school by Saturday.
The re-capture of Samarra, a key insurgent hotbed north of Baghdad, is being held as a model for future efforts to retake the country's troublespots by the end of the year.
"We must have a suitable atmosphere for the conduct of elections and the security situation requires exceptional" forces, Allawi told Iraq's interim parliament on Tuesday, a day after returning from a long trip abroad.
Allawi met with Straw, one of his staunchest allies in the bumpy post-transition process, and told reporters late Tuesday they had agreed on all issues.
He also vowed to do his utmost to help secure the release of Kenneth Bigley, a British engineer who has been held hostage for almost three weeks by Zarqawi's organisation and whose two US colleagues have already been decapitated.
In a fresh display of support for the embattled Iraqi premier, Straw voiced his confidence in Allawi's ability to stage elections by the end of January.
"I have been very struck in the course of these discussions both by the commitment of everyone that I have met this morning and by the explanations that I have been offered that the elections are going to be held by the 31st of January," he said Wednesday.
Straw was speaking after talks with UN and Iraqi officials tasked with supervising the electoral process and was also due to hold talks with President Ghazi al-Yawar.
But relentless violence across the country continued to yield its grim crop of casualties, mostly Iraqis.
An official from the Saadia region near Baquba, north of Baghdad, told AFP that three Kurdish militiamen and their civilian driver were killed in a drive-by shooting late Tuesday.
The fresh attack against Kurds came a few days after a previously unknown Kurdish group promised bloody retribution against Islamist Arabs targeting Kurds and the clerics abetting them.
Meanwhile in the United States, Iraq continued to dominate the political scene, as President George W. Bush's reasons for going to war were at the heart of the campaign for the November 2 elections.
A few days after Democrat hopeful John Kerry came out on top in a debate with Bush, the pair's number twos also fought over Iraq in a televised debate.
Vice President Dick Cheney insisted he would "recommend exactly the same course of action" if the March 2003 invasion could be planned all over again.
Kerry's running mate for his part assailed what he called the administration's misleading "rosy scenario" amid rising casualties among US troops there and stressed: "It's not just me that sees the mess in Iraq."
The Bush administration had drawn fire from an unlikely source earlier, when former top US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer complained that "we never had enough troops on the ground" after Baghdad fell, a shortfall that left the Iraqi capital prey to "horrid" looting.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dealt another blow to the principle rationales for the Iraq war by telling foreign policy experts that he had seen no "strong, hard evidence" linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda.