GIs Kill 10 in Raid on al-Qaida Hide-Out

U.S. Navy Corpsman Paul Jardine, of Fair Haven, Vermont, climbs through a hole in a wall during a patrol in Fallujah, the site of the largest U.S. battle in Iraq, 65 kilometers (40 miles), west of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 1, 2006. Three years ago today, President Bush stood aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, declaring the end of major military operations in Iraq, with a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished." (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg) (Jacob Silberberg - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops raided a suspected al-Qaida hide-out Tuesday, killing 10 insurgents _ three of them wearing suicide vests _ as American forces stepped up the hunt for the group's leader, terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber attacked a recruitment center for new police officers in Fallujah, killing five Iraqis, police said.

Police also found the bodies of 14 Iraqi men in Baghdad who apparently were the latest victims of a wave of sectarian violence involving death squads that kidnap civilians, torture them in captivity and dump their bodies on city streets.

Meanwhile Tuesday, American troops searched for "an al-Qaida terrorist leader" in the pre-dawn raid at a safehouse about 25 miles southwest of the U.S. air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, the military said.

The raid unfolded when troops surprised a guard and shot him before he could fire his pistol, the military said. As the insurgent fell, he detonated a suicide vest. Two more insurgents were killed inside the hide-out and the others outside as they tried to escape. Two of the dead were also found wearing explosive vests. One insurgent was wounded.

The statement did not say whether al-Zarqawi was the target of the raid or whether anyone escaped.

It was the fourth raid reported by the U.S. command against al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida-in-Iraq network since April 16, when American troops stormed a house in Youssifiyah just south of the capital, killing six people, including a woman, and arresting five people, among them an unidentified al-Qaida official.

However, CNN reported that the captives said al-Zarqawi had been in a nearby house.

Stepped-up operations against al-Zarqawi's network are taking place as U.S. and Iraqi officials are making overtures to other Sunni Arab groups, hoping to persuade them to abandon the insurgency and join the political process under a new government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Last weekend, President Jalal Talabani said officials from his office had met with insurgent representatives and he was hopeful they might agree to a deal. Talabani also said American officials had met with insurgents.

U.S. officials have confirmed meeting Iraqis linked to the Sunni Arab insurgency but have avoided identifying them. Last month, however, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad attributed a sharp drop in U.S. deaths in March to an ongoing dialogue with disaffected Sunnis.

On Tuesday, a leading Arabic language newspaper said Khalilzad had met with insurgent representatives in Amman, Jordan, on Jan. 16 and later in Baghdad on seven occasions. The newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, attributed the information to an unidentified insurgent official.