Officials: Teens trained for suicide bombings in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi soldiers rounded up six teenagers in northern Iraq who were being trained, against their will, to carry out suicide bombings for al Qaeda in Iraq, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

Troops conducting house-to-house searches in Mosul found six teens, ages 15 to 18, who were being trained to perpetrate attacks against Iraqi security forces, said ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.

Insurgents had threatened to kill the boys or their families if they refused to comply with the training, Deputy Interior Minister Kamal Ali Hussein told reporters.

"The Saudi insurgent threatened to rape our mothers and sisters, destroy our houses and kill our fathers if we did not cooperate with him," one of the youths told The Associated Press in Mosul.

The boys were rounded up as part of the Mother of Two Springs operation targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in Mosul and Nineveh province. The offensive has netted the detentions of more than 1,300 suspects.

The teens had been trained in recent weeks, Khalaf said.

A Saudi national -- a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq operative -- had been one of their trainers, but he was believed to have died in a military operation, Khalaf said. It is not known where or when he was killed.

The group of teens included the son of a female physician, the son of a college professor and four youths who belonged to families of poor vendors.

All six boys were taught how to carry out suicide attacks with explosive belts and a date was fixed for each one of them, Hussein said, adding that Iraqi soldiers had questioned the boys.

Iraqi troops rounded up the teens on the same day a suicide bomber drove a motorcycle into a checkpoint manned by police and a U.S.-backed Iraqi security group in northern Iraq, killing six people and wounding 22 others, local police said.

The suicide blast occurred Monday in the Salaheddin provincial city of Tarmiya.

The bomber, carrying a Saudi Arabian identification card, attacked a checkpoint guarded by police and members of the Sons of Iraq, the American-backed citizens' group that opposes al Qaeda in Iraq, police in Tikrit said.

Police said the Saudi ID card contained the name of Sultan bin-Mohammed al-Ghamedih, 35.

The checkpoint is near the house of a local leader of the citizens' group. The dead and wounded included police, civilians and Sons of Iraq members, police said.

Sons of Iraq, or Awakening Council, groups have been targeted by al Qaeda in Iraq.

Also in Salaheddin province Monday, a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded, according to the U.S. military. Watch how a military unit is honoring its fallen »

The U.S. military said Monday that another soldier was killed in a bombing Sunday near Ash Shamiya in southern Iraq's Qadisiya province.

An American soldier also died Saturday from a "noncombat-related cause." The number of U.S. service members killed in the Iraq war stands at 4,083.

Other developments

• The U.S. military denies an Iraqi TV station's report that a U.S. soldier killed one of its cameramen last week in Baghdad. Afaq TV said Wisam Ali Odah was killed by a "spiteful U.S. sniper," but the military said Sunday the cameraman was "yet another innocent victim of the indiscriminate violence being perpetrated by criminals in Baghdad."

• The level of violence in Iraq has dropped within the past week to a level not seen in four years, a military spokesman said Sunday. Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, spokesman for the Multi-National Forces, said, "In the past week, security incidents decreased to levels we have not seen since March of 2004. These figures reflect a decrease in attacks of some 70 percent since the surge operations began in June of 2007."

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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