BAGHDAD, Feb 8: A combined Iraqi-US force swooped on the health ministry on Thursday and arrested the second most senior official, the ministry's spokesman said.

Iraqi and US troops ramped up an operation to overrun insurgent hotbeds in Baghdad, as another 35 people were killed and dozens wounded in a string of attacks in several parts of the country on Thursday.

“Joint Iraqi-US forces broke into the health ministry building and arrested the deputy secretary Hakim al-Zamili for an unknown reason,” ministry spokesman Qassim Allawi said.

The health ministry is run by officials close to the radical anti-US Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been accused by US authorities of backing death squads that target Sunni Arabs in the bitter sectarian violence that grips Iraq.

US forces also killed around 13 fighters in an air strike on a “senior foreign fighter facilitator” northeast of the western district of Amiriya, a US military statement said.

Five people were also arrested in the raid against a network set up to aid foreign militants that come to Iraq to attack US-led forces.

The crackdown failed to halt the violence however, with security officials and medics reporting at least 20 people killed and 45 wounded by a car bomb in Al-Aziziya, 70km southeast of Baghdad on Thursday.

Another car bomb in a predominantly Shia district in the eastern part of Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded another 10.

It was the first attack in the Shia town, but late Wednesday a double bomb attack killed seven people and wounded 12 others in Suwaira, which lies 20km to the north.

In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad meanwhile, four policemen and a civilian died during an attack on a patrol on Thursday, a security source said.

The latest violence came as Iraqi and US troops spread across the capital as part of a long-awaited security plan to curb bloodshed that has killed tens of thousands across the country in the past year.

Security was stepped up across the city, and columns of armoured vehicles patrolled the perilous road between Baghdad International Airport and the city centre.

The Iraqi government has not yet announced the start of the offensive, but the newspaper Az-Zaman noted that six million primary and secondary school students were sitting for mid-year exams across the country, and a slew of checkpoints would make that process much more difficult.

The exams run until on February 15.

Most details on the security plan were provided by US officials.

US Major General Kenneth Hunzeker, who oversees training of Iraqi police, said each of Baghdad's nine administrative districts would host an Iraqi army brigade along with Iraqi police forces and a US battalion.

The brigades typically number 5,000 or so men, while a battalion generally comprises between 300 and 500 troops.

The police stations would integrate with or be supplemented by joint security stations manned around the clock by Iraqi-US units, Caldwell said.-—AFP