Iraqi police wave their weapons as they prepare for the operation. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD, April 17, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US-backed Iraqi troops launched on Sunday, April 17, an operation to rescue Shiites reportedly held hostage by militants in Al-Madaen town, with some locals charging the whole thing was a fabricated prelude for a Fallujah-like onslaught.

Iraqi troops armed with machineguns and assault rifles moved in vehicles on the edge of Al-Madaen, about 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Baghdad, as US troops cut off two key bridges leading into the area, Reuters reported.

Iraqi officials gave conflicting statements on the actual number of people taken hostage.

A senior Shiite official in Baghdad said up to 150 hostages, including women and children, were held by militants toting rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s who stormed the town with their cars on Friday, April 15.

But a police official said the number of hostages could be as few as three.

An Iraqi defense ministry official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Iraqi troops have recaptured half of Al-Madaen town and freed 10 to 15 families.

He added that the clashes were continuing.

Iraqi army special forces on Saturday, April 16, surrounded the town, home to Shiites and Sunnis.

An interior ministry source said the gunmen, reported to be Sunnis, blew up the building housing Al-Rasul Al-Adham mosque built on the ruins of the ancient city of Ctesiphon, which was empty at the time.

But several locals in Al-Madaen, where shops have started closing in anticipation of fierce fighting, insisted that the whole thing was “fabricated” and there was no hostage crisis.

“I am afraid we will pay the price for media reports which are not true. Troops are cutting off the entrance to Al-Madaen. If they attack we will defend ourselves,” one resident who declined to be identified told Reuters.

Emad Dawoud, another resident of the town, gave similar statements.

“There are no Sunni militants holding Shiite civilians hostage,” he told Al-Jazeera news channel Sunday from inside the besieged town.

He admitted there were tribal clashes in the town.

“We are getting ready to defend our town against any incursion,” he said emphatically.

A spokesman for Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, Abdul Hadi Al-Darraji, also denied Saturday that Sunnis were holding Shiites in the town.

He told Al-Jazeera that the incident was merely a score-settling among some families in the community.

Al-Darraji accused some parties of playing the sectarian tune to pit Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis against each other.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq’s highest Sunni religious authority, further denied in a statement carried by the Doha-based broadcaster that Sunnis were taking Shiites hostage.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Al-Qaeda wing said on Sunday that Al-Madaen hostage crisis had been fabricated to give US-backed Iraqi forces a pretext to raid the town and attack Sunni resistance fighters, reported Reuters.

“The infidels fabricated the case of the hostages. They are lying,” said an Internet statement from the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

“The infidels and apostates incited them (Shiites) to lie so that they can invade Madaen as they did Fallujah ... and other cities,” said the statement, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified.

A massive US raid into Fallujah has turned it into a ghost city, with deserted homes and roads, thick smoke and ubiquitous destruction.