The U.S. military denied Tuesday that its troops involved in the overnight raids on the government offices in the volatile province of Diyala that killed the governor 's secretary and detained others.
"Our operational data show no coalition forces being part of this operation," the military said in a statement.
Earlier, a local police source said that U.S. and Iraqi troops air-dropped troops at about 2:00 a.m. (2300 GMT on Monday) on the buildings of the provincial government offices with the aim of detaining the governor of Diyala Raad Rasheed Mullah Jawad, a Shiite, who was not present at the scene during the raid in the provincial capital of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.
The troops also clashed with the guards of the offices, killing Abbas Ali Hmoud, the governor's secretary and wounding three policemen, the source said.
Hussein al-Zubaidi, head of the security committee of the provincial council, a Sunni, was also detained during the raid, the source added.
Another force raided Diyala University and detained its chancellor, Nezar al-Khafaji, after clashes with the guards resulted in the wounding of four security members, he said.
A local source from the Iraqi Islamic party, a Sunni, confirmed to Xinhua that the raid was conducted by the Iraqi 36th Brigade from Baghdad. The Brigade soldiers fought fierce clashes with the guards of the provincial government building for half an hour.
The source who spoke anonymously confirmed that the assaulting force was affiliated to the interior ministry, adding that its soldiers killed the governor's secretary, beat the members of the provincial council and confiscated computers and mobile phones.
Last week, governor Jawad survived unhurt an assassination attempt when a suicide bomber struck his convoy in central Baquba.
On June 20, Iraqi forces detained Rafie Abdul Jabbar, deputy governor of Maysan province in south of Baghdad for charges of aiding militias loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The attacks came as U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces are conducting major offensive against extremist Sunni and Shiite militiamen in Diyala which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border.
Source: Xinhua
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