More than 50,000 Iraqi soldiers working alongside U.S. observers launched a major military incursion in the restive Diyala province, but so far the majority of operations have targeted only Sunni populations there, the Inter Press Service News Agency said Tuesday.

Diyala Deputy Gov. Awf Rahoomi said in a speech in the provincial capital, Baquba, that military operations should "also include Shiite cities like Hwaider, Khirnabat and Abara," areas controlled by remnants of the Mehdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and the Badr militia of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Meanwhile, members of the Sunni paramilitary force Sons of Iraq have complained Iraqi troops arrested several of its members and disarmed some of its units.

"The forces of the new security plan took all our weapons to the extent that we cannot fight al-Qaida anymore; we are impotent," said Mullah Shihab al-Safi, a commander with the group.

IPS says the counter-terrorist Battalion 36 of the Iraqi army last week stormed the offices of the provincial security chief, Hussein al-Zubaidi with the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, killing his secretary.

Sunni residents in Diyala said there have been no such raids on offices of Shiite politicians in the area.

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