"This blessed operation is a response to crimes carried out by those infidels in their fight against the Sunnis," the statement said. "The latest of the crimes committed by these traitors was to rape our sister in religion."

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A 20-year-old woman told Arab television stations that she was detained in a Sunni area of west Baghdad on Feb. 18, taken to a police garrison and assaulted by three officers. The woman gave a name which identified her as Sunni.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, announced an investigation Feb. 19 but cleared the officers the following day, stirring outrage among Sunni politicians.

Al-Maliki said the rape claim was fabricated to tarnish the reputation of the police and the ongoing security crackdown in Baghdad.

Friday's statement from the Islamic State of Iraq referred to the rape victim by her name and identified her as Sunni.

However, officials of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni group, said the woman used a false name and that she is in fact a Shiite. The party's human rights office had been looking into the case.

Names of the officers involved in the case were not released, and it was unknown whether they were Sunni or Shiite.

In Baghdad, two car bombs killed at least 11 people in attacks Friday. The deadlier occurred at a used car lot near the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, killing 10 people, wounding 17 and setting several cars ablaze, police said.

The other blast was near a police patrol in southwest Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians, police reported.

Violence has dropped sharply in the capital since the Feb. 14 start of the security operation, in large part because the Shiite-led government convinced militiamen to withdraw. The US military also said Friday that eight suspected militants were killed a day earlier in a raid in Salman Pak, a town just southeast of Baghdad where Sunni and Shiite extremists have frequently clashed.

US forces came under small-arms and mortar fire, and killed three armed men moving toward them, the statement said. Twenty minutes later, troops were fired on again and shot dead four suspects. Another man was killed in a vehicle nearby, the statement said.

Sniper rifles, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were removed from the scene, it added.

Iraqi police and US advisers arrested a Shiite militia leader Friday in the southern city of Hillah, the US reported. He was suspected of involvement in roadside bombings that killed three coalition soldiers since December, the US statement said.

In Fallujah, 45 miles west of Baghdad, residents reported finding handbills warning local tribes to abandon checkpoints they had established to detain members of al-Qaida. The handbills said al-Qaida would retaliate if the checkpoints remain.

The warning followed reports by Iraqi police of clashes between al-Qaida members and local residents opposed to the extremist group.

A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol 150 miles southeast of Baghdad, killing one soldier, police said.

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