kilometers) northwest of the capital, the military said. The aircraft observed about 25 al-Qaida insurgents carrying AK-47 assault rifles _ one brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade _ walking into a palm grove, the military said.
"Shortly after spotting the men, the aircraft were fired upon by the insurgent fighters," it said.
The military did not say what kind of aircraft were involved, but the fact that the fighters opened fire suggests they were low-flying Apache helicopters. The command said more than 20 of the group were killed and four vehicles were destroyed. No Iraqi civilians or U.S. soldiers were hurt.
Iraq's Defense Ministry said in an e-mail Sunday that Iraqi soldiers had killed 44 "terrorists" over the past 24 hours. The operations were centered in Salahuddin and Diyala provinces and around the city of Kirkuk, where the ministry said its soldiers had killed 40 and arrested eight. It said 52 fighters were arrested altogether.
The ministry did not further identify those killed, but use of the word "terrorists" normally indicates al-Qaida.
In a separate operation, U.S. forces killed two insurgents and detained 21 others during weekend operations against al-Qaida.
Intelligence led to a raid early Sunday that netted what the U.S. military called 15 rogue members of the Mahdi Army militia at an undisclosed Baghdad location.
The mainstream of the militia, the armed wing of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's organization, has been ordered by the religious leader to stop attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
But many one-time members of the group have split off and are acting independently of al-Sadr's control. Some have gone to Iran for training and are receiving weapons and financing from the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians _ both Shiite and Sunni _ in criticizing a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.
The Senate resolution, adopted last week, suggests Iraqi government and parliament adhere, if they can agree, to the country's constitution. The basic law allows for a loose confederation of regions under a limited central government, leaving the bulk of power with the regions. Senator Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, was a prime sponsor.
