ARABS-US RELATIONS - Apr 30 - US Forces Kill Insurgents In Area Being Used To Stage Suicide Attacks.

US and Iraqi forces kill more than 20 foreign insurgents, some wearing suicide vests, during raids in an area being used by militants to stage attacks in Baghdad. The raids took place in and around Youssifiyah, a town about 20 kms south of Baghdad, where an US helicopter apparently was shot down by insurgents nearly a month ago, killing the two soldiers aboard. Meanwhile, attacks by insurgents continued on Apr 30 in Baghdad and other areas, including roadside bombs targeting US forces, Iraqi police and civilians. At least one Iraqi was killed, eight were wounded and one kidnapped, police said. Despite the violence, PM-designate Nouri al-Maliki continued to meet with politicians to choose his Cabinet for Iraq's new national unity government one aimed at calming sectarian tensions and luring disaffected Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency. Al-Maliki has promised to finish the job in the next two weeks, but it could be difficult for him to fill top Cabinet posts with politicians who are not affiliated with parties that have maintained armed militias being blamed for sectarian violence. In an interview Apr 29 with America's National Public Radio, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said of al-Maliki: It's good to have a deadline, but I think perhaps he's being optimistic. It will be tough for him". In the latest raid in the Youssifiyah operation, US and Iraqi forces on Apr 29 attacked buildings being used by foreign insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq, and captured seven militants and detained more than 50 suspected ones, the US command said. Such operations have killed more than 20 foreign insurgents in the last few weeks, several of them caught wearing suicide vests, the military said. That included 12 insurgents, at least five of them foreign, who were killed in Youssifiyah when US troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safe house there, the US military said. It said insurgents have been using the Youssifiyah region as a staging area to conduct suicide attacks in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. When the Apache helicopter crashed on April 1, the US command said it was believed to have been shot down, and the Mujahedeen Shura Council, purportedly a new umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida in Iraq and smaller insurgent groups, claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Jazeera TV also aired footage provided by the insurgents which they claimed showed parts of the wreckage. The US military did not say whether the suspected militants killed in the latest raids in and around Youssifiyah were believed to have been involved in the helicopter crash. The area is part of the infamous "triangle of death" and the scene of numerous ambushes against US and Iraqi troops, foreigners and Shiite civilians. A roadside bomb killed a US soldier southwest of Baghdad on Apr 29, raising the American death toll for April to at least 70, the highest monthly figure since November, when 84 Americans died. But the US military would not give the precise location of Apr 29 attack, or say whether it was related to the coalition raids in and around Youssifiyah. Meanwhile, insurgent attacks continued Apr 30. A roadside bomb hit a US military convoy in central Tikrit, the hometown of former Pres Saddam Hussein, said police Maj. Ahmad Awad said. He said the blast set a Humvee on fire, causing US casualties, but the US command could not immediately confirm that. In Ramadi, 115 kms west of Baghdad, gunmen attacked three policemen traveling in a car carrying the salaries of police in Fallujah, killing one, wounding another, and kidnapping the third with the bag of money, police said. Two roadside bombs targeting separate Iraqi police patrols exploded within a half hour of each other in two areas of western Baghdad, wounding two policemen and a civilian driving nearby, police said. In the Sadr City Shiite slum of Baghdad, a bomb exploded aboard a minibus near a gas station, wounding three Iraqi civilians, said police Lt. Thair Mahmoud. Many Iraqis pay small fees to travel around the capital in privately owned minibuses. A roadside bomb in Musayyib, 60 kms south of Baghdad, missed a police patrol but wounded a civilian, said police Capt. Muthana Khalid said. A roadside bomb exploded near a US convoy in Rawah, 275 kms north-west of Baghdad, witnesses said, but casualties were not immediately reported.