The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Baghdad

Iraqi and U.S. forces killed 14 suspected insurgents and detained 44 more in raids over the past 48 hours in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.

Iraqi and U.S. soldiers also uncovered weapons caches this week in and around the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, including rocket-propelled grenades and materials used to make bombs, the U.S. military said in a statement. Helicopters were used in some of the fighting that took place in Mosul and around Nineveh province, it said. I have been actively providing information to the (Iraqi security forces) and coalition forces to assist them in securing their neighborhoods," U.S. Colonel Stephen Twitty said in the statement. The raids come as the U.S. military, which has poured an extra 30,000 troops into Iraq this year, touts declining levels of violence, especially in the capital Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the US military on Thursday released 500 Iraqi detainees at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at Camp Victory, a large military base near Baghdad airport. Maliki urged the mostly-Sunni detainees to help his government's efforts in "rebuilding the country", as they sat in rows under the hot sune minister later told reporters the prisoners had been released "on a humanitarian basis", adding that it was part of a broader national reconciliation programme his government embarked upon last year.