
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Civilians helped coalition and Iraqi forces conduct a massive raid on an al Qaeda hideout in the town of Sherween, leaving 20 suspected terrorists dead and 20 more in coalition custody, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
A member of a Sunni militia guards two suspected al Qaeda member in Diyala province Wednesday.
The militants were caught off guard when U.S. aircraft dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs and 14 quarter-ton bombs on river crossings and a bridge in the town northeast of Baghdad, said Staff Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem.
Kareem, who commands the Iraqi Security Forces in Diyala province, said the bombings isolated the terrorists who had infiltrated Sherween. The town’s residents fought alongside the Iraqi forces during the raid, helping them kill and capture the terrorists, a U.S. military news release said.
“This operation was very important for the people of Sherween because we were able to find a very big hideout for the terrorists,” Kareem said of Operation Saber Guardian, which began early Tuesday. “It was a very big surprise for the terrorists and the people that support them.”
The raid will have a political impact on Diyala, which the U.S. military says has become a hotbed for al Qaeda terrorists who fled Baghdad after the U.S.-led security crackdown there, said Maj. John Woodward, executive officer of the U.S. troops involved in the operation.
The raid will help “facilitate Sunni resistance fighting in the Muqdadiya area as the people have grown tired of the destruction al Qaeda offers,” he said.
The U.S. military continued to target al Qaeda in raids early Wednesday, killing two suspected terrorists and arresting 22.
In one southwestern Baghdad raid, forces arrested a “suspected secret cell terrorist” believed to have connections to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, which is suspected of launching attacks in the capital.
In Mosul, troops detained five suspects believed to be members of al Qaeda in Iraq, the military said. Another terrorist was killed after threatening troops with a knife, according to the military.
Coalition forces killed another suspected terrorist in western Baghdad after he “continued to resist and made threatening motions toward the ground force,” the military said. Troops also arrested an insurgent suspected of involvement in Baghdad bombing operations.
In Samarra, raids netted the arrests of four people suspected of kidnappings, assassinations and mortar attacks on coalition forces, the military said.
Various other raids resulted in the arrests of 11 suspected terrorists thought to have ties to al Qaeda in Iraq.