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The Iraqi government said Wednesday its forces killed 85 insurgents at a training camp in the north of the capital amid continued violence, while Bulgarian troops planned to leave Iraq by the end of this year.
"Special police commandos conducted a successful raid on a terrorist training camp," said a statement of the Iraqi government, noting they "killed 85 terrorists and led to the successful capture of one Algerian."
This was one of the heaviest single-day tolls suffered by Iraqi insurgents since US-led military operation started in March 2003.
Meanwhile, the US military said it provided ground and air support for the raid which took place Tuesday.
The US military said seven Iraqi commandos were killed in the raid, but it failed to confirm the death toll of the insurgents.
The training camp was located in a remote region near the Lake of Tharthar, where US troops have had a presence.
The Iraqi government's statement said a police commando battalion discovered the camp. But it was not clear how such a large camp could have been established without earlier detection.
Despite the above victory, security in Iraq has given no sign for improvement.
An Iraqi police officer was killed and two others wounded Tuesday night at a US military checkpoint northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi police said Wednesday.
"The US soldiers in the checkpoint opened fire on a police vehicle after they failed to stop," said a statement issued by the joint command center for the Iraqi police and the US army in Tikrit.
One Iraqi police officer was seriously injured, and evacuated to a US field hospital, but he died later of his wounds, the statement said.
It added that a joint Iraqi-US military patrol returned fire after being under attack of insurgents early Wednesday near the Iraqi city of Baquba, some 60 km northeast of Baghdad, killing one of the attackers.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi police found two unidentified bodies north of Dhuluiyah, some 100 km north of Baghdad. Both were shot in the chest and head with their hands tied behind their backs, the police said.
In another development, the Iraqi security forces detained 81 suspected terrorists in raids in the northern province of Nineveh, the Iraqi government said in statement on Wednesday.
It said the security forces detained 58 suspected terrorists in Hamam al-Alil and 20 others in Salmiyah, near Mosul.
The three others were arrested during a raid in western Mosul, the statement said.
The US military Wednesday denied an earlier report about its air strikes on two cities west of Baghdad.
"There were no air operations in the cities" of Haditha and Haqlaniyah, both of which are situated in the volatile province of Anbar, the US military said.
Local residents and medics told Xinhua earlier that the air strikes took place after the US forces were attacked by insurgents near the Haditha hospital and four people were wounded in the raids.
They also said the US soldiers detained the hospital guards for several hours.
Meanwhile, witnesses said a US base in Ramadi was attacked with mortar rounds and US soldiers immediately sealed off the roads leading to the city.
Iraq's Anbar province, which includes restive cities of Ramadi, Fallujah and Haditha, has long been a hotbed of insurgency against US troops and Iraqi's fledgling security forces.
Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry on Wednesday announced it will propose all its troops be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2005.
Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov will submit the proposal to the cabinet Thursday, and then to the parliament which has the final say on troop deployments abroad.
Bulgaria has lost eight soldiers since the start of the US-led military action in Iraq. The eighth one was killed by US "friendly" fire three weeks ago, which triggered strong calls in Bulgaria for a complete pullout from Iraq.
President Georgi Parvanov had called for a fast decision on troops pullout from Iraq, while latest opinion polls showed that more than 60 percent of Bulgarians opposed the country's military involvement in Iraq.
(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2005)
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