Boy among five tortured in Iraq -- US military

BAGHDAD, May 21 (Reuters) The US military said today it had found five Iraqis, including a boy, who had been kidnapped and tortured by militants the captives described as foreign fighters.

The four unidentified men and the boy were found during raids against an al Qaeda network in Garma, about 30 km west of Baghdad in Anbar province, a Sunni Arab insurgency stronghold.

They were found inside a padlocked room and had been beaten with chains, cables and hoses, the U.S military said in a statement.

''The boy stated the terrorists had hooked electrical wires to his tongue and shocked him,'' it said. It did not give the boy's age.

''The hostages indicated their captors were foreign fighters who spoke with different accents.'' All five were from different tribes, the military said, but no other details were available. They would receive medical treatment and then be handed over to tribal leaders.

Thousands of US and Iraqi troops are in the third month of a security crackdown in Baghdad and other areas in a last-ditch attempt to avert an all-out sectarian civil war.

The military says the crackdown has helped cut the number of targeted sectarian killings between majority Shi'tes and Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein, but torture and killings remain common.

The Iraqi government is under pressure from Washington to meet a series of political benchmarks seen as important in promoting national reconciliation and in drawing Sunni Arabs into the political process and away from the insurgency.

US and Iraqi forces have also fought to stem the flow of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and other foreign fighters who move through western Iraq to join the insurgency.

The US military said it had captured what it described as three al Qaeda cell leaders during raids in western Baghdad early today.

It said one of those captured was the commander of a cell which carried out assassinations and roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad.

Reuters SKB GC1951