2 women, 1 man netted with explosives in their possession

DIALA / IraqiNews.com: A joint force from the Iraqi army and U.S. troops captured on Monday two women and one man inside a house in Jalawlaa district with an amount of weapons and explosives in their possession, a security official in Diala province said. “The raiding joint Iraqi-U.S. force seized arms and explosives in the three arrested persons’ possession in a house in al-Wihda neighborhood, eastern Jalawlaa district,” Amer Rifaat, a member of Diala’s security committee, told IraqiNews.com. “The detained women and man were planning to bomb themselves in public crowded places in the area,” the source said, adding they are now under investigative custody. Jalawlaa belongs to Khanaqin district, 155 km northeast of Baaquba city. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian borders. Its capital is Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. Later on, the Iraqi security forces had launched a wide-scale security campaign in Diala province. The operation, codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), is aimed at tracking down members of al-Qaeda network in Diala, Iraq’s most restive city, after the armed group lost its strongholds in the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar, where tribesmen fought its members and flushed them out of the city. A large portion of the province is drained by the Diala River, a major tributary of the Tigris.   AmR (S) 1