Updated at 12:15 a.m. EST, Nov. 17, 2007
A large U.S.-Iraqi raid on two villages south of the capital marked an otherwise quiet prayer day. Overall, 22 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 24 more were wounded. One U.S. soldier was killed in a vehicular accident while in Kuwait.
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a pre-dawn assault on al-Owesap and al-Betra. Over 750 combined troops targeted the two Sunni Arab villages looking for al-Qaeda fighters, some possibly involved in the kidnapping of U.S. soldiers in May. No casualties were reported so far. Also, a pair of 2,000-pound bombs were dropped on an island on the Euphrates River thought to be an al-Qaeda staging area.
In Baghdad, four dumped bodies were recovered. A pair of roadside bombs killed one and wounded four outside a motorcycle shop in the Nahdha neighborhood. An hour earlier, a civilian was shot and wounded in the same location. Also, a television reporter was kidnapped.
Eight al-Qaeda suspects were killed in Muqdadiya as villagers and police drove them out of the city.
The bodies belonging to two brothers were found hours after they disappeared from Sadiyah.
A policeman was killed and his brother wounded during an armed attack as they were leaving their home in Amara. In a separate incident, the policeman’s son had been kidnapped and held for 45 days before being safely released.
Two weapons caches were found in Mosul.
In al-Siniyah, Iraqi soldiers randomly firing upon a crowd injured five civilians.
Four policemen were injured during an IED explosion in Kanaan.
Near Baquba in Behdeed, an IED injured three civilians. In the Thiyabat region, six people were injured by a separate roadside bomb. Three policemen were killed during another IED explosion north of town. Also, a woman was killed when gunmen fired upon the headquarters of a group sympathetic to U.S. forces.
U.S. forces killed two suspects, one wearing a suicide vest, and detained four more south of Baghdad. In Kirkuk, 12 suspects were captured. A dozen more were detained in Diwaniya.
Also, 17 Turkish tanks were spotted moving towards the Iraqi border. Although tensions between Iraq and Turkey have subsided somewhat, Turkey continues to hunt Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members within its border provinces and has not eliminated the threat of a cross-border incursion.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
