American soldiers called in an airstrike Monday during an attack on a house believed used by foreign fighters, killing five militants and capturing more than a dozen others, the U.S. military said.The firefight broke out early Monday when American soldiers, acting on information from an Iraqi prisoner, came under heavy gunfire as they approached the suspected hideout in a remote area of northwestern Iraq, the U.S. said in a statement. Soldiers called in an airstrike, which destroyed the house, triggering secondary explosions from the weapons and explosives stored inside, the statement said.
Five men were confirmed dead, and multiple suicide vests and heavy machine guns were also found in the ruins of their hideout, it said.
The statement did not give a precise location for the raid. But northwestern Iraq has long been used by al-Qaida and other Sunni militant groups as an infiltration route for smuggling weapons and fighters into the country from Syria, according to the military.
Monday's battle was among a series of raids over the past two days in northern Iraq against Sunni militants, who remain active despite suffering severe setbacks last year in fighting with U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad. In Beiji, an industrial city about 150 miles north of Baghdad, American soldiers detained five suspects Monday in an operation against a militant bombing network. An alleged al-Qaida in Iraq bomber was captured Monday with another suspect in Mosul, and five others were arrested south of the city, the military said.
The al-Qaida in Iraq "emir" of Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city north of the Iraqi capital, was arrested late Sunday along with three other suspects, the statement said. Two other al-Qaida suspects were picked up in Baghdad.
U.S. officials have said al-Qaida and other Sunni groups have been trying to undermine efforts to reconcile Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in the north and pressure Sunni tribesmen against cooperating with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.