US troops kill, arrest 'Iranian-linked' militants in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US troops have killed up to five militants and arrested 13 alleged Iranian-linked arms smugglers in a raid on Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, the military said on Monday.

The raid on Sunday was carried out to "capture or kill highly-sought weapons facilitators with connections to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps -- Quds Force in Iran," the military said in a statement.

"Those detained are suspected of facilitating the transport of weapons and personnel from Iran into Iraq."

The military accused the detainees of smuggling explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), fist-shaped bombs that cut through a heavily armoured vehicle, from Iran into Iraq.

More than 200 US soldiers have been killed since May 2004 by EFPs, allegedly manufactured in Iran and supplied to Iraqi extremists, the military says.

During the raid Sunday, the military said a US air strike killed three to five militants inside a light utility truck that was destroyed in Sadr City.

"As coalition forces were departing the area, they encountered and destroyed a light utility truck that posed a threat to the force," it said.

"A coalition air strike also engaged the same light utility truck, destroying the truck and killing an estimated three to five people in the truck believed to be terrorists."

The US military regularly accuses Iran's elite Quds Force of arming, funding and training Iraqi extremists to carry out attacks on its troops in war-ravaged Iraq. Tehran denies the charge.