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Marines kill 25 insurgents in ramadi { July 23 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0407230219jul23,1,278197.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hedhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0407230219jul23,1,278197.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
ACROSS IRAQ
Marines kill 25 insurgents during clashes in Ramadi
By Evan Osnos
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published July 23, 2004
BAGHDAD -- U.S. Marines killed 25 insurgents and captured 25 others during several hours of fierce clashes in the western city of Ramadi, the military said Thursday, as a wave of recent kidnappings spurred the government of Kenya to urge its citizens to leave Iraq.
The Ramadi fighting is symptomatic of a wave of clashes in provincial cities around Baghdad in the weeks since Iraq regained its sovereignty June 28. Those clashes are deepening a divide between a capital increasingly policed by Iraqi faces and a countryside that remains squarely the responsibility of the U.S.-led coalition.
Despite hopes that the hand-over of sovereignty would usher in a downturn in American casualties, these provincial battlegrounds have fueled a growing death toll. Thirty Americans have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq so far in July; 26 died in all of June, according to figures from the U.S. Central Command.
Ramadi has long bridled under U.S. occupation, but clashes have increased recently. Fighting flared Wednesday, when a Marine convoy was ambushed about 3 p.m. with a homemade bomb, followed by gunfire and grenades, according to a Marine statement. Marine commanders called in air support to help battle a rebel force that began with fewer than 10 fighters but grew to an estimated 75 to 100, the military said.
Marines reported 14 U.S. casualties, none of them life-threatening. Seventeen militants were wounded, in addition to those captured, the Marines said. A car bomb was seized and defused during the fighting, along with mines and rocket-propelled grenades.
With the longtime insurgent stronghold of Fallujah still gripped by rebels, the U.S. military is seeking to avert a similar buildup of militants in two predominantly Sunni cities nearby: Ramadi and Samarra, which is northwest of the capital. Days of rebel strikes on Iraqi and U.S. forces in and around Samarra have stirred fears among residents that a U.S. invasion could be imminent, prompting an unknown number of families to seek refuge in Baghdad.
Samarra has been the site of sporadic fighting since a powerful car bomb struck the Iraqi National Guard headquarters July 8, killing five U.S. soldiers and four Iraqi guardsmen. Though some Iraqi and foreign news reports described a growing outflow of thousands of residents, a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said Thursday that there was no evidence of "any type of exodus from the city."
In Baghdad, U.S.-led troops and Iraqi police and National Guard forces launched a strike against criminal and rebel elements Thursday in a predominantly Syrian and Palestinian neighborhood along the main thoroughfare of Haifa Street. Gun battles crackled for several hours, and 48 people were arrested, a U.S. military spokesman said. No casualties were reported.
Truckers kidnapped
The Kenyan request that its citizens leave Iraq came a day after a group calling itself the Holders of the Black Banners announced it kidnapped three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian, all of whom are truckers for a Kuwaiti company. The militants vowed to behead a captive every 72 hours beginning Saturday if the nations do not agree to withdraw troops and other citizens.
Though Kenya is not part of the 160,000-strong coalition of foreign troops, and Nairobi said it had no idea how many of its citizens are here, the decision added pressure on U.S. officials to maintain international involvement in Iraq despite kidnappings of several foreign contractors and troops in recent months.
The latest captives were taken one day after a Filipino truck driver was released, following the Philippine government's decision to accede to kidnappers' demands that they withdraw the nation's tiny contingent of 51 peacekeepers. U.S. and Iraqi officials criticized that concession as a possible encouragement of more kidnappings.
The abductions come at a particularly bad time for Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who was in Egypt on Thursday trying to persuade reluctant nations to join the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.
Allawi asked Egypt "to talk to some Arab and Islamic leaders to send forces to protect" a UN mission in the country. But an official in the Egyptian president's office said Egypt would send troops only if other Arab nations do first.
Headless body found
Meanwhile, Iraqi police near the northern city of Tikrit discovered a decapitated body, and Bulgaria was investigating whether it could one of two truck drivers who were captured by rebels, AP reported. The body was clad in an orange jumpsuit.
A body discovered last week has been identified as that of 30-year-old truck driver Georgi Lazov. Bulgarian officials are trying to determine whether the other body is that of fellow driver Ivaylo Kepov, 32. Militants loyal to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they kidnapped the men.
In Washington, Halliburton Co. executives told a House committee that allegations the company overcharged the government for work in Iraq distorted the truth, The Washington Post reported.
A hearing by the House Committee on Government Reform was the first time executives of the company's KBR unit appeared on Capitol Hill to respond to charges it misspent public money while doing $5.6 billion worth of work in Iraq.
"While we have undoubtedly made some mistakes, we are confident that KBR has delivered and accomplished its mission at a fair and reasonable cost," said Alfred Neffgen, the chief operating officer of government operations in the Americas.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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