40,000 Iraqi, US forces to mount Baghdad crackdown

BAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) More than 40,000 Iraqi and US forces will launch a security crackdown in Baghdad tomorrow, a senior Ministry of Defence official said today.

''Armoured personnel carriers and tanks will be used. We will depend on intelligence to find suspects, '' Major General Abdel Aziz Mohammed told Reuters.

''There is no time limit for ending this operation because it is a strategic plan through which we are determined to impose order in tense areas,'' he said.

''The number of the combined forces participating in the security plan will be more than 40,000,'' he added.

Mohammed, echoing a plan envisaged by US military commanders, said security would eventually be handed over to Iraqi police.

He said two regiments from the Ministry of Defence, two regiments from Interior Ministry and multinational forces would be deployed in the operations.

US and Iraqi forces have launched several crackdowns across Iraqi aimed at rooting out insurgents and militants seeking to topple the government but they have failed to ease violence.

REUTERS SHB BD1846