BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces said on Thursday they had killed more than 23 Sunni and Shi'ite fighters in two operations in Iraq and captured two al Qaeda-linked militants suspected of links to the abduction of three U.S. soldiers.
The offensives underscored the continuing conflict between U.S. forces and militants on both sides of Iraq's sectarian divide, despite a dramatic reduction in violence this year.
U.S. forces said they killed 12 militants in a four-day operation against Sunni Arab fighters north of Baghdad and 11 in an overnight raid against Shi'ite militants in the south.
The two men captured were described as linked to the abduction of three U.S. soldiers in May, which triggered a massive manhunt in palm groves south of Baghdad during the deadliest three-month period of the war for U.S. troops.
Iraq has since become far quieter, but that incident remains a touchstone for U.S. forces. The soldiers went missing after their patrol was ambushed on May 12 in Mahmudiya in the "Triangle of Death," an insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad.
The body of one of them was pulled from the Euphrates River near Baghdad later that month. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack, in which four other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed.
The U.S. military said the two suspects were caught on Monday and Tuesday in Ramadi in the western province of Anbar. One was caught in a house where one of the missing soldiers' weapons had been found.
RAID KILLS 11
In the south, the U.S. military said it killed 11 militants in the city of Kut in an early morning operation against "special groups," a term it uses to describe Shi'ite Mehdi Army militiamen who it says receive weapons from Iran.
"When coalition forces approached the target area they were engaged by terrorists with direct enemy fire from assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades," the military said.
"Responding in self-defense, coalition forces returned fire, and called for supporting aircraft to engage. The ground force assessed that approximately 11 terrorists were killed during the engagement," it added in a statement.
At the scene, windows had been blasted out and holes blown through the roofs of minivans. Walls were pocked with shrapnel and a tree was blackened with fire. Local residents said they saw dead bodies in the streets.
"We heard heavy gunfire around midnight and the American aircraft fired at our houses, which injured my brother's wife," said Hussein Jassim, a resident.
"In the morning I saw three bodies of civilians lying on the ground near our house and four wounded people who have been taken to the hospital."
The Mehdi Army is loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who ordered his followers to observe a ceasefire in August. U.S. forces say that truce has contributed to a decline in violence, but some Mehdi units have refused to halt attacks.
In the north, the U.S. military said it had killed 12 militants and detained 37 during an operation from December 22-25 in Muqdadiya in the Diyala River valley, an areas where U.S. commanders say al Qaeda militants have regrouped.
"Coalition forces discovered an al Qaeda suicide bomb-making facility with numerous bomb-making materials inside," U.S forces said in a statement. "As the ground force cleared the building they found a man held captive in a locked room, who appeared to have been beaten."
(Additional reporting by Jaafar al-Taie in Kut, and Aseel Kami and Peter Graff in Baghdad; writing by Alaa Shahine and Peter Graff; editing by Matthew Tostevin)
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