Middle East News
US raid kills one, arrests four in Iraq's holy city (2nd Roundup)
Jun 27, 2008, 18:51 GMT
Baghdad - One civilian was killed in a US raid in Iraq's holy city of Karbala and an Iraqi judge was killed in western Baghdad on Friday, while security handover of Anbar province was postponed due to expected bad weather conditions.
One civilian was killed and four were arrested Friday during a US raid targeting Karbala, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The holy city's governor, Oqeil al-Khazaali said that the detainees were not outlaws nor did they belong to any armed group.
He said that the operation took place in Ganaga district, which is the birthplace of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
'We denounce the operation and demand an explanation from US forces, as security forces in Karbala did not know about it,' al- Khazaali said.
The US army did not comment on the raid.
Earlier on Friday, the director of al-Sadr's office in Karbala said that police forces arrested between 30-40 Sadrists after the Friday prayers.
Also in the south, Iraqi army forces seized a number of weapons and stores of ammunition north of the southern city of Basra, the official spokesman for the US forces in Basra said.
He told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that the weapons were confiscated in al-Karama region, north of Basra.
In another development, an Iraqi judge was killed Friday when militants attacked him on his way to his house in eastern Baghdad, security sources said.
Sources told dpa that militants shot dead Kamal al-Showeily in Baghdad's Qana district.
In other news, at least 20 people - including three US marines and two interpreters - were killed in an attack that targeted a meeting of clan chiefs and tribal leaders in the town of Karma in the western province of Anbar on Thursday, a US military statement said.
The attacker managed to enter through an unguarded gate, al- Arabiya news channel said. Senior local officials and clan chiefs were reported to be among those killed.
The US deaths pushed the number of that country's troops killed since June to 29, bringing to 4,113 the total of US personnel killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The US military meanwhile said it would postpone the handover of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces in Anbar province, which was supposed to take place on Saturday, due to expected bad weather conditions in the predominantly Sunni province. A new date for the handover had not yet been set.
The province is scheduled to become the first Sunni province to be transferred to Iraqi security control.
It will be the 10th of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control. The previous nine have been Kurdish or Shiite.
