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American offensive kills 75 in western iraq { May 9 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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U.S. Offensive in Western Iraq Kills 75
U.S. Forces Launch Offensive Against Insurgents Near Iraq-Syria Border, Killing 75 Militants
By BASSEM MROUE
The Associated Press
May. 9, 2005 - American troops backed by helicopters and war planes have launched a major offensive against insurgents in a remote desert area near the Syrian border, and about 75 militants were killed in the first 24 hours, the U.S. military said Monday.
Marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, were conducting the offensive in an area north of the Euphrates River, in the al-Jazirah Desert, a known smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign insurgents, the military said.
The brief statement did not specify when the operation began, how many troops were involved or whether there had been any American casualties.
The offensive is one of the largest involving U.S. troops since American and Iraqi forces took over the insurgent bastion of Fallujah in November. Two weeks ago, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers completed a four-day operation against insurgents north of Baghdad where a civilian helicopter was shot down.
The offensives are part of stepped-up raids on suspected hideouts across the country, including a number near the Syrian border, where U.S. and Iraqi officials say foreign militants are entering the country to attack coalition forces.
The Chicago Tribune reported that more than 1,000 U.S. troops supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships raided villages Sunday in and around Obeidi, about 185 miles west of Baghdad, in an operation expected to last several days.
The report, by a journalist embedded with the U.S. forces, said the offensive "was seeking to uproot a persistent insurgency in an area that American intelligence indicated has become a haven for foreign fighters flowing in from Syria."
Some U.S. forces were able to conduct limited raids north of the Euphrates and predator drones provided surveillance Sunday, but most troops were stuck south of the waterway as engineers tried to build a pontoon bridge there, the Tribune said.
It also quoted some Marines as saying residents of one riverside town turned off all their lights at night, apparently to warn neighboring towns of the approaching U.S. troops.
"Our analysis is that there's a foreign fighter flow from Syria," Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, told the Tribune. "The trademark of these folks is to be where we're not. We haven't got north of the river for a while."
On Sunday, the U.S. military said coalition forces killed six insurgents and detained 54 suspects in raids targeting the country's most feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, in Qaim, a Syrian border town about 200 miles west of Baghdad. Coalition forces said they acted on information received from Mohammed Amin Husayn al-Rawi, an associate of Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Rawi was captured April 26, the U.S. military said Saturday.
The crackdown came amid insurgent violence that has killed more than 310 people since April 28, when a new Iraqi government was announced with seven positions left undecided. At least nine American servicemen were killed over the weekend.
Iraq's interim National Assembly on Sunday approved six more Cabinet members, including four more Sunni Arabs. But the Sunni man selected as human rights minister turned down the job because he didn't want to be selected on a sectarian basis, tarnishing the Shiite premier's bid to include the disaffected minority believed to be driving the insurgency.
The five new members were sworn in Monday. The rest of Cabinet also repeated the oath of office after new language was added at the request of Barham Salih, the Kurdish planning and development cooperation minister.
The ministers pledged their allegiance to a "federal, democratic" Iraq, which Salih said brought the wording of the oath in line with language in Iraq's transitional law.
Iraq's two main Kurdish factions, which hold 75 seats in the 270-member National Assembly, are pressing for a federal government that would give strong autonomy to the Kurdish north.
When complete, the new government is expected to include 17 Shiite ministers, eight Kurds, six Sunnis and a Christian. Three deputy premiers have been named one each for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, with the fourth held open for a woman.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari pledged Sunday to take "all necessary measures" to restore security in Iraq and said the government could impose martial law, if necessary, to fight the insurgents.
Violence continued Monday with at least three Iraqis killed in a suicide car bombing at police checkpoint at a busy Baghdad intersection, said police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim. The dead included two policemen and a civilian. Six other policemen and three civilians were wounded, he said.
At least three other car bombs exploded in Baghdad later Monday, including one that wounded an unidentified number of Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint, said U.S. military spokesman Master Sgt. Greg Kaufman.
On the outskirts of Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, residents found five corpses on a street Sunday. Associated Press Television News footage showed the victims, including one wearing a military uniform, lying on the side of the road near three charred cars. It was not immediately clear how or when they died.
The U.S. military said it had conducted several raids Sunday in and around Baghdad, detaining 13 suspected insurgents, some armed with rocket- propelled grenades.
Two of the suspects were captured in a raid aimed at the leader of a terror cell believed to have plotted an April 20 assassination attempt against former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the military said. Allawi was unhurt, but at least one policeman was killed and two wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded near a police checkpoint as his convoy drove him home.
On Sunday, the Iraqi government said its security forces had captured another al-Zarqawi associate, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was identified as Ammar Adnan Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaydi, also known as Abul Abbas. Al-Zubaydi is accused of planning an April 2 assault by dozens of insurgents who blew up car bombs and fired RPGs outside Abu Ghraib prison, the Iraqi statement said.
The American casualties included a U.S. soldier who was killed by gunfire Sunday in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
The worst of the weekend fighting occurred in Haditha late Saturday, when insurgents occupied a civilian hospital and used gunfire, RPGs, a suicide car bomb and a roadside bomb to kill three U.S. Marines and a sailor, the military said.
On Monday, the U.S. military accused insurgents of using patients as human shields during the four-hour battle in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, even after one of their bombs set fire to the hospital. An unspecified number of militants were killed, the military said.
At least 1,600 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, Australia's top Muslim cleric left Monday for Baghdad to try to win the release of an Australian hostage.
Militants who kidnapped Douglas Wood, 63, who lives in Alamo, Calif., released a video Friday demanding that Australia start pulling its troops out of Iraq within 72 hours. The militants did not specify what time the deadline expires, or what they will do if their demand isn't met.
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