Baghdad, Iraq ? Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers have launched new raids against insurgent strongholds in a volatile Sunni province, officials said Saturday.

Iraqi soldiers and Marines began the operation on Thursday with raids in the village of Zaidan, 20 miles southeast of Fallujah, the military said. So far, 22 suspected insurgents had been detained.

Fallujah, a western Anbar province city 40 miles west of Baghdad, was a major insurgent bastion until U.S. forces overran the city in November.

The military did not announce the offensive earlier because commanders did not want to tip off insurgents. The campaign includes 500 Marines from the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team-8, stationed in Okinawa, Japan, the military said.

Also on Saturday, masked gunmen wounded Yahya al-Haidari, a local chief of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, as he drove in Mosul, hospital officials said.

Al-Haidari is a provincial chief in Iraq’s largest Shiite Muslim group. Sunni Arab insurgents have been targeting Shiites, who dominate Iraq’s government.

The head of Iraq’s karate association, meanwhile, was kidnapped south of Baghdad, sports officials said Saturday. Ali Shakir was abducted Thursday in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Ahmed Hashim, an Iraq Olympic committee official.

It was not clear why Shakir was taken. Hundreds of Iraqis have been abducted during the last two years – some by insurgents for political and sectarian reasons and some by criminal gangs for ransom.

A relative of slain Iraqi policeman Saad Muhsin cries outside a morgue Saturday in Baghdad, Iraq. Muhsin was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen on his way to his office, according to police.

His abduction came two days after a Web site claimed that al-Qaida in Iraq had killed Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif, who was seized by up to eight gunmen on a street in western Baghdad last weekend.

On Saturday, Egypt demanded that Iraq explain remarks made by its government spokesman Laith Kubba that al-Sherif was likely on his way to meet with insurgents when he was abducted.

It has been reported that al-Sherif was kidnapped while buying a newspaper in Baghdad a week ago and al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing Egypt’s top envoy to the country. The claim had not been independently verified and there has been no photographic evidence proving his death.

In London, The Mail on Sunday reported that British Defense Secretary John Reid drafted a secret paper for Prime Minister Tony Blair outlining how most of the country’s 8,500 troops could be sent home from Iraq within three months, with the rest by the end of the year. The document also said the U.S. was looking to cut back its own troop levels to 66,000, down from the 135,000 there now.

But in a statement released by Britain Defense Ministry, Reid said the document was one of several periodic updates examining possible scenarios for the war in Iraq.

“We have made it absolutely plain that we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed,” Reid said. “No decisions on the future force posture of UK forces have been taken.”