The US military deployed 10,000 soldiers backed by attack helicopters in a big offensive against Al-Qaida north of Baghdad on Tuesday as a truck bomber struck in the capital, killing 75 people near a Shi'ite mosque.

The offensive against Al-Qaida around the city of Baquba in Diyala province, a stronghold of the Sunni Islamist group, is partly aimed at taking down car bomb networks that cause carnage in Baghdad and other regions of Iraq. It is one of the biggest military operations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One witness said a suicide bomber driving a truck rammed his vehicle into the Shi'ite Khilani mosque in Baghdad, destroying one of its walls and badly damaging the rest of the structure.

Police said 75 people had been killed and 130 people wounded. Rescuers dragged bodies from the mosque while the charred remains of others could be seen in burned out minibuses.

It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since a car bomb on April 18 killed 140 near a market.

The explosion followed a relatively quiet period in Baghdad after a four-day curfew was imposed last week in the wake of an attack on a revered Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra.

The US military said 22 militants were killed in the early hours of the offensive against Al-Qaida around Baquba.

"The end state is to destroy the Al-Qaida influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general, operations, 25th Infantry Division, said in a statement.

"That is the number one, bottom-line, up-front, in-your-face, task and purpose."

(China Daily via agencies June 20, 2007)