US troops battled insurgents yesterday that were holed up inside a dusty frontier town in the American military's latest campaign to stop the infiltration of foreign fighters from neighboring Syria.
At least 100 insurgents were captured on the first day of Operation Spear, which saw about 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces, backed by main battle tanks, fight their way into Karabilah in Anbar province.
US fighter aircraft dropped bombs and the tanks fired shells at insurgents holed up inside buildings in Karabilah, about 320km west of Baghdad. In Baghdad, a 10-year-old Iraqi girl was killed yesterday and two people were injured when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy in the capital's Jihad neighborhood.
Two Iraqis were also injured when another roadside bomb missed another US military convoy in Baghdad's western Radwaniya suburb, according to a hospital.
Four suicide attacks around Iraq, including one in the capital, killed 11 people Friday as rebels seeking to lead Iraq into a civil war intensified the pace and scope of attacks against Iraq's still-weak security forces. More than 60 people have died in suicide attacks over the past two days. During daylong battles Friday, Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought "insurgents holed up in buildings within the city," Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.
"Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed these targets. Only buildings occupied by insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed. Three buildings were confirmed destroyed," Pool said.
Marines carried out two major operations in the area last month, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign, Operation Matador, and 14 in the second, Operation New Market. Eleven Marines were killed in those two actions, designed to scatter and eradicate insurgents using the road from Damascus to Baghdad. During Friday's assault, troops captured about 100 foreign fighters and discovered at least one car bomb factory. Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier anti-insurgent offensives but Chase said this time they not only fought alongside Americans, but used their language skills and knowledge of the area to spot foreign fighters.
US intelligence believes the area in Iraq's western desert is the main entry point used by extremist groups such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq to smuggle foreign fighters into the country. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington to tighten control of its porous 610km border with Iraq.
The area has been flush with insurgents in recent weeks. Marines carried out June 11 airstrikes that killed about 40 militants after a nearly five-hour gunfight near Karabilah. Insurgent in the area also killed 21 people -- beheading three of them -- thought to be a group of missing Iraqi soldiers. The bodies were found June 10.
At least 1,095 people have been killed since the Shiite-led government was announced in late April.
According to an AP count, from April 26 through June 16, at least 136 vehicle bombings have killed at least 492 people and wounded at least 1,409. In addition, at least 10 suicide bombers, wearing explosives, have killed at least 188 people and wounded at least 493. The number of insurgents killed in that period is thought to be more than 290.
Also yesterday, the body of doctor Mundir Mohammed Abbaswas found in southern Baghdad. His hands were bound and he had been shot in the head. It was unclear why he was killed.
The body of a Sunni tribal leader, Sheikh Arkan Shaalan Jassim al-Edwan, was also found shot dead yesterday by police near Mahmoudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad.
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