US Marines detained 43 suspects in a series of raids south of Baghdad, the latest in a months-long sweep that has netted around 600 alleged militants, the military said in a statement today.
Troops from the 24th Marine expeditionary unit, backed by Iraqi security forces, rounded up 21 suspected insurgents around the town of Yusufiya, a rebellious stronghold about 40 km southwest of Baghdad yesterday.
In related searches in the nearby town of Haswah, Iraqi police and Marines detained 13 people. Nine other suspects were seized in raids near the militant town of Mahmudiya, at the centre of what has been dubbed the "triangle of death".
In the past five months, since Marines took over from Polish troops in the northern Babil province that reaches south from Baghdad, more than 850 people have been detained, the statement said. Of those, nearly 600 remain in prison.
The area to the southwest of Baghdad has been a focus of insurgent activity for months, but saw a surge in violence as US troops prepared to launch their offensive against the Sunni militant bastion of Falluja, to the northeast of Mahmudiya.
A fuel truck driving along the main highway running north from Mahmudiya was attacked today by gunmen, who set the truck ablaze and kidnapped the Iraqi driver, police in Mahmudiya said.
Bandits as well as militants operate in the area. Yesterday, a suicide bomber rammed a car into an Iraqi forces checkpoint outside Latifiya, just to the south of Mahmudiya, killing nine people and wounding 13.
The blast destroyed around five civilian cars, a witness said. The area is particularly treacherous for Iraq's fledgling security forces, whom insurgents target for working with the U.S.-backed government. The bloated bodies of Iraqi police and National Guards, sometimes shot, sometimes beheaded, wash up frequently in on the banks of the nearby Euphrates River.