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BAGHDAD, July 22: Twenty-five guerillas were killed in a fierce battle with US troops on Wednesday in the Iraqi flashpoint city of Ramadi. Fourteen US servicemen were also injured, the US military said.
The clashes were triggered when guerillas set off a bomb near a Marines convoy and then attacked it with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, according to a military statement.
It said the US forces, backed by air support, battled against an estimated 100 guerillas and detained 25 of them, as well as discovering two bombs, including a car bomb.
Police and hospital sources in Ramadi, 100kms west of Baghdad, said four people, including three brothers, were killed and 14 wounded in the violence, which they said included a car bomb.
An Iraqi police official said the three brothers were killed when the car bomb exploded in their path as they walked along a main road lined with several public buildings.
20 ARRESTED: A dawn raid on Thursday in Baghdad netted about 20 Arabs, mostly from Syria, suspected of links with attacks on occupation forces in Iraq, the interior ministry said, as locals braced for violent repercussions.
Hundreds of Iraqi police and national guards, backed up by US forces, took part in the operation.
"Security forces arrested about 20 Arabs, most of them from Syria," an official from the interior ministry said.
The arrests were made "thanks to information that reached the ministry indicating that these Arabs were supporting terrorists who plan to carry out attacks in Iraq", the official said.
Residents on Baghdad's Haifa street, where the sweep took place, spoke of being jolted awake by a loud explosion around 4.30am, followed by bursts of gunfire long into the morning.
Surrounding streets were sealed off by Iraqi security forces and by US troops, while US helicopters kept watch overhead.-AFP
