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Diyala province has been difficult to pacify despite previous operations

Iraqi forces backed by American troops have launched a major operation against insurgents in the north-eastern Iraqi province of Diyala.

This is one of the last strongholds of al-Qaeda militants in the country.

The operation was launched at dawn. A curfew was imposed across the province as troops and police started deploying in the regional capital, Baquba.

In the capital Baghdad, a vehicle ban has been imposed following Monday’s suicide bomb attacks on Shia pilgrims.

Twenty-five people were killed in co-ordinated bombings carried out by women.

Monday also saw a suicide bomber target a crowd of Kurdish protesters in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing 22.

Secret timing

A US army spokesman in Iraq said the goal of the operation in Diyala was to seek out and destroy what he called criminal elements and terrorist threats in the province, and to eliminate smuggling in the region.

Apart from the deployment in Baquba, Iraqi and US forces conducted raids in several outlying areas.

Security sources said a number of wanted people had already been detained.

There have been similar major operations in Diyala province in the past but they have all been so loudly heralded that insurgents had plenty of time to escape, regroup and stage a return later, BBC Baghdad correspondent Jim Muir says.

This latest operation was generally expected but its timing was kept secret, and army and police units were brought up from Baghdad unannounced.

Diyala has proved to be one of the most stubborn areas to pacify following the success of the calming of former hotbeds of the insurgency such as Anbar province to the west of Baghdad.

Pilgrimage climax

In Baghdad, hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims have continued to make their way on foot towards the shrine in Khadimiya, in the city’s northern suburbs, for the climax of the annual Imam Musa al-Kadim festival.

Many of them have been walking for days, coming in from outlying areas to the south of Baghdad.

In pictures: Baghdad bombing

Our correspondent says it is when they are on the road that the pilgrims are at their most vulnerable, as the bomb attacks on Monday showed.

Police say it is virtually impossible to provide complete protection to large numbers of people moving on foot over a wide area, especially against suicide bombers also moving on foot.

The threat from women bombers is even greater, since they can conceal the explosives under their long black robes.

Two hundred policewomen have been stationed at Kadhimiya itself to perform body searches on women pilgrims entering the area of the shrine, where security is stringent.

But that kind of scrutiny cannot be provided all the way along the approach routes.