Suspected teenage suicide trainees arrested in Iraq

Mosul (AFP) - Iraqi troops on Monday arrested six teenage boys suspected of being forcibly trained by Al-Qaeda to carry out suicide bombings, the interior ministry said.

The boys were rounded up during a house-to-house search in the Sumer neighbourhood of Mosul, the capital of the northern Nineveh province where security forces have been carrying out a major sweep against jihadists. Interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said the six boys aged 15 to 18 were trained by a Saudi national suspected of being an Al-Qaeda operative, who is believed to have died in the military operations.

"They are all teenagers who were preparing to commit a wave of suicide bombings in Mosul," Khalaf said.The teenagers were paraded before the press on Monday morning, a few hours after their arrest. Jackets filled with explosives were recovered from their hideout.

One of the boys said he was forced to join or risk his mother and sister being raped.

Defence ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said on Sunday that the operations which began in Nineveh province on May 14 had resulted in the detention of some 1,030 suspects.

He said the ministry estimated that another 2,000 may have fled the US-backed Iraqi army offensive. Meanwhile, six people, including two policemen, were killed and 16 were wounded on Monday in a suicide bombing targeting a US-backed militia north of Baghdad, police said.

The bomber rode a motorcycle laden with explosives into the compound of Saeed Jassem al-Mashadani who heads an "Awakening Council" in the town of Tarmiya, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the capital, a police official said.

Police Colonel Ahmed Hamed Tawfiq said two policemen were among those killed. The four others were members of the Awakening movement, he said, adding that Mashadani himself was elsewhere at the time.

Awakening groups consist of mainly former insurgents who have crossed over to the government side. They are funded and armed by the US military to help battle insurgents of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.