By Xinhua
Tikrit, Iraq : Iraqi security forces have raided villages in the northern province of Salahudin, killing four suspected insurgents and detained 76 others, a provincial police source said on Monday.
“A joint police and Iraqi Army force on Sunday raided a cluster of villages outside the town of Shirqat, some 280 km north of Baghdad, with the aim of chasing al-Qaida militants who killed four members of the local Awakening Council group,” Colonel Hassan Ahmad of the province police command, told Xinhua.
During the raid, sporadic clashes erupted between the security forces and militants, resulting in the killing of four gunmen and the wounding of six others along with the detaining of 70 more, Ahmad said.
Two days earlier, insurgents believed to be affiliated with the al-Qaida network blew up a roadside bomb near a vehicle carrying members of local Awakening Council group, killing four of them and wounding nine others aboard.
The Awakening Council is a civilian group cooperating with the U.S. troops in fighting al-Qaida militants in the area.