BAQUBA, Aug 23: Scores of Al Qaeda fighters raided an Iraqi town on Thursday, clashing with rival militants and police after killing a tribal sheikh in fighting that left 23 people dead and 15 others kidnapped.

Brigadier General Ali Dalayan, police chief of Diyala’s provincial capital of Baquba, said more than 200 fighters from Al Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate attacked a mosque and the homes of tribal Sunni sheikhs in the town of Kanan.

“The first attack was against a mosque,” he said. “They blew up the mosque, then they bombed houses crowded with family members.” Three houses were attacked, including those of two sheikhs who support Iraqi police and US troops in their fight against Al Qaeda, he said.“Sheikh Yunis al-Tae was killed in the attack” along with an unknown number of his sons in one of the homes, Dalayan said.

Police countered with the support of gunmen from the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, a Sunni insurgent group once allied with Al Qaeda but now one of its fiercest rivals.

He was not immediately able to say how many people died in the raids and how many in the ensuing gunbattle. At least one police officer was among the dead.

Dalayan said police had chased the attackers but had had a “difficult time as they planted roadside bombs around the town before escaping.” “We have arrested 22 Al Qaeda suspects,” he said. They were detained south of Kanan, 50 kilometres from Baghdad, in an area known to be a stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

He said the attackers managed to abduct eight women and seven children.

The raid on Kanan came despite a massive military crackdown in Diyala by some 16,000 US and Iraqi troops who claimed success in their assault.

The US military said the 12-day Operation Lightning Hammer ended on Thursday successfully, with around 26 Al Qaeda fighters killed and 50 villages cleared.

It said more than “80 tribal leaders and representatives” vowed to “unite in their fight against terrorists and become one tribe of Diyala.” “We have continued to diminish their (Al Qaeda) supplies and disable Al Qaeda’s abilities to disrupt the population,” the statement quoted Colonel David Sutherland, commander of US forces in Diyala, as saying.—AFP