Baghdad, Iraq – U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships and warplanes swept through western Iraq near the Syrian border for a third day today, raiding desert outposts and safe houses belonging to insurgents, the U.S. military said.
As many as 100 militants have been killed since Operation Matador, one of the largest American military offensives in Iraq in six months, began Saturday night in the border town of Qaim, 200 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.
At least three U.S. Marines have been killed in the offensive, which is hunting for followers of Iraq’s most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, said U.S. officials.
A Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with U.S. forces said 20 American troops also were wounded, but the U.S. military could not immediately confirm that.
The offensive comes amid a surge of militant attacks across Iraq, often targeting security forces and civilians, since the new government was announced April 28.
At least two car bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing at least seven people and wounding 19, police said. Three American soldiers were among the injured, the U.S. military said.
It also said three U.S. Marines were killed in central Iraq on Monday, one by a homemade bomb in Nasser Wa Salaam, 25 miles west of Baghdad, and two others by indirect fire in Karmah, 50 miles west of the capital.
U.S. Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said soldiers built a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates River on Monday and Marines had pushed into the northern Jazirah Desert, a largely unpatrolled area near the Syrian border.
“This is an area which we believe has been pretty heavy with foreign insurgents from many different areas – Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine,” Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a spokesman for U.S.
forces in Iraq, told The Associated Press. “That’s a fairly porous area of the border because of the terrain. It is very difficult.” Residents in the area of the offensive reported fighting today in Obeidi, 185 miles west of Baghdad, and the two nearby towns of Rommana and Karabilah. Speaking by telephone, they said frightened residents were fleeing the Qaim area.
“It’s truly horrific, there are snipers everywhere, rockets, no food, no electricity,” Abu Omar al-Ani, a father of three, said from Qaim on Monday night. “Today five rockets fell in front of my house. … We are mentally exhausted.” Pool said today insurgents had tried the night before to launch a counterattack 4 1/2 miles from U.S. Camp Gannon in Qaim. They attacked a Marine convoy with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and two suicide car bombers, Pool said.
One bomb damaged an armored Humvee, and a suicide car bomber was destroyed by a U.S. Marine tank, but no Marines were killed and 10 insurgents surrendered, Pool said.
The offensive by more than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers included helicopter gunships, fighter jets, tanks and light armored vehicles and was expected to last several days. U.S. officials described the area as a known smuggling route and a haven for foreign fighters involved in Iraq’s insurgency.
The New York Times reported that Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighters dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs and fired 510 20-millimeter cannon rounds Sunday against insurgents around Qaim and that Marine F/A-18 fighters fired 319 20-millimeter cannon rounds.
The paper quoted U.S. Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the 2nd Marine Division, as saying: “The enemy honestly felt that they had a sense of security up there. It had been a safe haven, and a lot of folks up there were former Baathists,” referring to Saddam Hussein’s former ruling party.
“Now it is no longer a safe haven, and it will never be a safe haven again,” said Chase. He was quoted as saying insurgents have had a network of illegal “rat lines” of men and materials moving from Syria into Iraq that had to be stopped.
Marine commanders expressed surprise at the extent of resistance in Obeidi and surrounding villages on the southern side of the Euphrates, telling the Chicago Tribune their intelligence had indicated the insurgency had massed on the other side of the river.
The Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with the offensive said insurgents had sandbag bunkers piled in front of some homes and fighters strategically positioned on rooftops and balconies.
Marines who pursued attackers took part in house-to-house combat against dozens of well-armed insurgents, it said.
An embedded Chicago Tribune reporter wrote that in one house, militants crouching in the basement fired rifles and machine guns upward through holes in the walls at ankle height, aiming at spots that the Marines’ body armor did not cover.
At one point, the Times said, a Marine walked into a house and an insurgent hiding in the basement fired through a floor grate, killing him. Another Marine who was retrieving a wounded comrade inside a house suffered shrapnel wounds when an insurgent threw a grenade through a window, the Times said.
In Sabah, Obeidi and Karabilah, the Times reporter said, insurgents fired mortar rounds at U.S. Marine convoys along the southern edge of the Euphrates.
The report said insurgents were using boats to transport weapons from one side of the river to the other, and that some wore body armor. It said one Marine suffered a broken back and at least two were wounded Sunday when a land mine hit their tank.
Meanwhile, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini suggested that Italian troops could stay in Iraq into early 2006, after Iraqi elections are held – longer than the Italian premier had previously indicated.
He said the withdrawal of the 3,000-member contingent could coincide with “the final act of the U.N. path” setting elections in December. He said, though, that the elections themselves could be delayed by another month or two, pushing back any pullout.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi has said Italy planned to begin reducing its contingent by about 300 troops in September, although he said any decision would be made with the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi officials, and would depend on security.
Japan’s defense chief Yoshinori Ono said the apparent kidnapping of one of its citizens would not affect the country’s deployment of 550 troops in southern Iraq.
The Sunni militant Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed on its Web site it had kidnapped Akihiko Saito, 44, after ambushing a group of five foreign contractors protected by Iraqi forces. It said Saito was “seriously injured” in the fighting and that the others had died.
A spokesman for Saito’s employer, Cyprus-based security firm Hart GMSSCO, confirmed he was missing after an ambush Sunday night involving Hart personnel.
Saito’s brother, Hironobu, urged Tokyo to stay the course.
“If the Japanese government decides it’s best to stay in Iraq, I will support (that). … I do not expect the Japanese government to waver for the sake of my brother,” he said.
today’s worst car bomb attack in Baghdad occurred near a movie theater in al-Nasr Square. The Interior Ministry said at least seven people were killed and 16 wounded by a suicide car bomb that exploded as a U.S. military convoy was passing.
A U.S. military spokeswoman, Capt. Kelly Lewis, confirmed the attack, but said it apparently targeted an Iraqi army patrol, wounding at least 10 Iraqis, including security forces and civilians. Three American soldiers were also wounded, Lewis said, but she could not confirm whether they were part of a convoy.
Three policemen were wounded when a car bomb exploded several miles to the south of al-Nasr Square in Abu Nawas, police said, an area of the capital once famous for riverside restaurants and nightclubs.
