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| Iraq |
| U.S. Military Launches New Iraq Offensive |
| 2005-10-04 |
| Some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces launched their second major offensive in western Iraq in a week Tuesday, sweeping into three towns to take them back from insurgents who had killed Marines there last month. The U.S. military announced its first casualties of the offensives, with four troops killed by roadside bombs during the fighting and a fifth elsewhere. ... The military launched its latest offensive in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. Code-named "River Gate," it was the largest U.S. offensive in the troubled Anbar region of western Iraq this year, the military said. It also included hundreds of Iraqi troops, the largest such contingent of any of the offensives this year. Airstrikes by U.S. warplanes and dozens of helicopters set off explosions that lit up Haqlaniyah, Parwana and Haditha before dawn Tuesday. Barrages of gunfire also were seen in the night sky. Large sections of Haqlaniyah's power were knocked out. Some of the strikes took out bridges across the Euphrates in the area to prevent militants from escaping over them into the desert, said Lt. Col. Christopher Starling, the operations officer in Regimental Combat Team 2, which is leading the offensive. Dozens of roadside bombs were encountered on the main arteries into the towns as U.S. troops moved in, Marine commanders said. Later in the day, U.S. snipers took positions on rooftops in Haqlaniyah as troops blared warnings on loudspeakers ordering residents to stay inside their homes, witnesses said. The military launched a similar offensive on Saturday, 93 miles upriver, by the Syrian border. Operation "Iron Fist," which continued Tuesday, concentrated in the towns of Sadah, Karabilah and Rumana, aiming to uproot al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents who receive reinforcements and supplies from Syria. At least 57 militants have been killed in that operation. The military said a Marine was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in Karabilah, the first U.S. death in Operation Iron Fist. In the hours before Operation River Gate began, a roadside bomb hit U.S. troops in Haqlaniyah on Monday, killing three, the military said. Elsewhere, a soldier was shot Monday morning near Taqaddum, a town close to the city of Fallujah, also in Anbar but away from the two offensives, the military said. The killings raised to at least 1,941 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The towns of Haqlaniyah, Parwana and Haditha, with a combined population of 100,000, have no Iraqi police or troops based in them, leaving their streets open to roving insurgent groups. On Aug. 1, an ambush by insurgents in Haditha killed six U.S. Marine snipers, and a large roadside bomb on the outskirts of the city on Aug. 3 killed 14 Marines and an Iraqi interpreter. Last spring, Haditha General Hospital, the region's largest, was heavily damaged by a suicide car bomb that set fire to the building, and insurgents used staff and patients as human shields during fighting with Marines that followed. In addition, the U.S. military has said that Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al-Qaida in Iraq, once had a home in Haditha. Earlier this year, hundreds of U.S. forces conducted individual sweeps in the three towns. The newest operation is "step forward to eliminating insurgents and giving the country back to the Iraqi people," said Col. Stephen W. Davis, who added it would help residents in the Haditha area freely vote in the constitutional referendum. ... |
| Posted by:ed |
| #3 Col. Stephen W. Davis No "v". Doesn't count. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-10-04 21:13 |
| #2 good killing, Marines! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-04 19:43 |
| #1 Ima just gonna say Hummmmmm, here for the record. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-10-04 19:21 |