IRAQI commandos backed by American troops and helicopters captured a terrorist training camp north of Baghdad in one of the biggest single battles against the insurgency.

Iraqi officials, whose estimates of the number of insurgents killed varied between 45 and 80, said that some were foreign fighters, mostly from Syria and Saudi Arabia, who were training with Iraqis at the camp on the shore of Lake Tharthar, outside Tikrit.

Major Richard Goldenberg, a US military spokesman, said: “An early assessment of the site indicates a facility for training anti-Iraqi forces.”

At least six Iraqi commandos from the special anti-terrorist unit were said to have been killed in the battle. It was unclear how much back-up US forces gave, but the raid continued a trend of sending Iraqis into battle first in preparation for the time that they will take over responsibility for security.

An official at the Interior Ministry, which oversees the special commando unit, urged caution on the death toll, but confirmed that a large battle had taken place. “There are frequent clashes in the district, but this is a big deal,” he said.

Notices distributed by a group called the Islamic Army of Tikrit said that 11 militants had been killed, and “many more” police commandos died.

In Baghdad, politicians meeting to try to seal a deal on forming a new government said that they were considering naming a Sunni Arab as Defence Minister. This was intended to bring the sidelined group into the political process and to help to quell the insurgency.

Sunni Arabs, the ruling elite of the last regime, form the backbone of the indigenous insurgency. They also controlled the security forces under Saddam Hussein and so are very experienced. Control of the defence and interior ministries is seen as crucial to future security in Iraq, the first priority of voters and the yardstick by which any future government will be judged.

Shias, the majority group won the election, want the interior post so that they can weed out former regime officials from the security forces now fighting the insurgency.This plan has unnerved American and British diplomats, who have conceded that removing the most experienced law enforcers under “de-Baathification” may have contributed to the present instability.

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