BAGHDAD, Dec 4: Iraqi forces said on Sunday they killed 20 rebels in a counter-offensive in a town where 19 Iraqi troops were killed a day earlier, as US forces wrapped up their latest operations in Al-Anbar province.

Iraqi troops swept through the town of Al-Adhaim, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, in the aftermath of Saturday’s ambush, security sources said.

The operation, which lasted through to Sunday morning, resulted in “20 rebels killed and five taken prisoner,” said the defence ministry, with another 75 suspected insurgents arrested.

Saturday’s attack came after 10 US marines on night patrol were killed in Fallujah, also by a roadside bomb.

The western province of Al-Anbar, which contains Fallujah, has been the focus of a series of joint US-Iraqi anti-insurgent operations over the last several weeks.

The US military announced on Sunday the completion of Operation Shank in the provincial capital of Ramadi, resulting in the “detention of four suspected members of Al Qaeda in Iraq”.

The US military said the operation was part of a campaign being carried out to make the area secure ahead of the Dec 15 parliamentary elections.

But the sweeps against predominantly Sunni Arab population centres have angered prominent Sunni religious and political groups, which have called for an end to the “operations against civilians.”

President Jalal Talabani on Saturday defended the US-Iraqi sweeps, saying they “began after repeated attacks by rebels on US and Iraqi forces,” and adding they were to secure the area ahead of this month’s vote.

A number of shooting incidents and roadside bombs hit Baghdad on Sunday, one day before Saddam Hussein’s trial was set to resume.

With two defence lawyers already murdered, Iraqi security forces said they had thwarted a plot to attack the trial inside Baghdad’s highly protected Green Zone.—AFP