Iraqi forces detain hit squad leaders-US military

BAGHDAD, Aug 21 (Reuters) Iraqi security forces detained two suspected death squad leaders, one of them accused of torturing victims at a Shi'ite mosque, in a raid in southern Baghdad, the US military said.

The two men ''exercise control over all death squad cell activity'' in three Baghdad neighbourhoods, including the notoriously violent Doura district, the military said yesterday.

''One of these individuals also allegedly controls a Baghdad husseiniya (Shi'ite mosque) where he tortures and kills Iraqi citizens,'' their statement said.

Iraqi troops supported by US advisers captured the men during a raid on a house in the southern Rasheed district, part of a US and Iraqi crackdown on death squads that American officials say are fuelling sectarian violence ravaging Baghdad.

Washington has poured thousands of troop reinforcements into the city in recent weeks, after the surging violence frustrated plans to start withdrawing some of the 130,000 US soldiers in Iraq before the end of the year.

The violence, much of it blamed by US officials on Shi'ite death squads, poses the greatest threat to the three-month-old government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose national reconciliation plan has so far failed to contain sectarian tensions between Shi'ites and minority Sunnis.

Sunnis accuse militias controlled by radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr of carrying out many of the killings, a charge he denies.

The US military said in a separate statement that a raid on one of Sadr's offices in northwestern Baghdad on Friday had found rockets, one rigged with a makeshift bomb, a mortar, bomb-making materials and assault rifles.

It did not say whether any arrests had been made. US forces have targeted leaders of Sadr's Mehdi Army, based in his Sadr City stronghold in eastern Baghdad, in recent operations.

Reuters LL VP1245