The death toll in a two-day long US raid on a "terrorist" training camp in northwest Iraq has reached 97, a US military spokesman said today.
US troops killed 27 Iraqis who ambushed a tank patrol on Friday, after killing at least 70 at a guerrilla camp the day before, in the bloodiest clashes since President George W. Bush declared major combat over.
The US military has launched two big operations west and north of Baghdad this week to try to root out what it says are diehard Saddam Hussein loyalists behind attacks on US troops in mainly Sunni Muslim areas.
A US statement said an organised group of fighters had fired rocket-propelled grenades at a 4th Infantry Division tank patrol in Balad, about 90 kilometres from the capital.No US casualties were reported in the clash.
Some 4,000 troops have been scouring an area around the Tigris river northeast of Balad since Monday in "Operation Peninsula Strike", which the military said was the biggest operation it had launched in the past six weeks.
In the other big assault, launched early yesterday, at least 70 people were killed at a "terrorist" training camp in northwest Iraq, a US military spokesman said on Friday.
The spokesman said a US helicopter had been shot downduring the operation on Thursday. The Apache's two-member crew were rescued unhurt.