Iraqi and US troops move against al Qaeda in north

By Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. troops launched an operation in northern Iraq on Saturday to try to drive out al Qaeda militants regrouped there, the Iraqi military said.

Lieutenant-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, commander of Iraqi armed forces in Nineveh province, said the operation would particularly target al Qaeda fighters in the city of Mosul, regarded as the group's last urban stronghold in Iraq.

Tawfiq said a vehicle curfew had been imposed throughout the province, whose capital is Mosul.

"I declare the beginning of the military operation today to clean the province of al Qaeda remnants," Tawfiq told reporters. "I call on all the clerics and the heads of tribes to support the security forces in our effort to kick al Qaeda out."

The U.S. military had no comment on the operation. Mosul residents said they saw U.S. fighter planes flying over the city.

Tawfiq said large numbers of Iraqi forces had been sent to Nineveh for the operation, although he declined to give details.

In January, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced plans to drive al Qaeda out of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city. U.S. military officials said at the time it would take months to clear the ethnically and religiously mixed city.

U.S. officials blame al Qaeda in Iraq for most big bombings in the country, including an attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set off a wave of sectarian killings that nearly tipped Iraq into all-out civil war.