Security operation increased in Iraq

A detained Iraqi faces a wall after he was arrested by US Marines in the town of Haklanyah, west of Baghdad yesterday. US forces pursued increased security operations throughout the Sunni Muslim rebel province of Al-Anbar where the military said a Marine had been killed the previous day. PHOTO: AFP

Security sources, meanwhile, said five more people including two insurgents, had been killed in other incidents.

The marine from I Marine Expeditionary Force "was killed in action while taking part February 24 in a security and stabilization operation in Al-Anbar province," the statement said.

Operation River Blitz moved into its sixth day on Friday after a day of further bloodshed in which at least 23 people were killed in the war-wracked country.

In Baghdad on Friday, a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shiite parties that won the country's January election, said it had set up a commission that began formal talks on a new government and that would seek to incorporate all political camps.

The nine-strong commission is also seeking to get agreement with other parties, including the Kurds who emerged as the second main political force, to set a date for the first meeting of the new parliament, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, an alliance MP, told AFP.

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The five deaths reported by security sources on Friday were those of an Iraqi soldier killed in an ambush overnight, a policeman shot as he returned home, a petrol-tanker driver in a convoy protected by the US military and two rebels.