Baghdad, Iraq — Thousands of U.S.-led forces on Wednesday squeezed insurgent strongholds in the dusty lawless towns south of Baghdad, as the purported voice of Iraq's most-wanted terrorist blasted Muslim clerics for failing to rally behind the anti-U.S. uprising.
The large-scale military offensive -- the third in Iraq this month -- unfolded with more than 5,000 U.S., British and Iraqi troops hunting for Sunni Muslim insurgents in what a military spokesman described as a series of "precision" raids.
"If the insurgents thought they were going to catch a break after their pummeling in Fallujah, they're going to be disappointed," Capt. David Nevers, a spokesman with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, wrote in an e-mail.
The offensive, dubbed Operation Plymouth Rock to mark the Thanksgiving holiday, is focused on the towns along the east bank of the Euphrates River, 50 miles south of Baghdad, in an area infested with insurgents and criminals. The region, known as the "Triangle of Death," is viewed as a launching pad for attacks on Baghdad.
Earlier in the day, an Islamist Web site posted a digital recording purporting to be the voice of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi's group, al-Qaida in Iraq, is thought to be responsible for many roadside bombings, killings of supportive Iraqi police and troops, and the gruesome beheadings of foreign hostages. The U.S. government has put a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi.
The recording lambastes Muslim theologians, or ulemas, for not speaking out against U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and for failing to support Iraq's insurgents.
A truck transporting blast walls burns after being attacked in western Baghdad. The capital was not the main focus of violence Wednesday; U.S. troops carried out raids south of Baghdad, while five Iraqi police officers were found slain in the northern city of Mosul.
"You made peace with the tyranny and handed over the countries and the people to the Jews and crusaders ... when you resort to silence on their crimes ... and when you prevented youth from heading to the battlefields in order to defend the religion," the speaker said.
"Oh, ulemas of the nation ... you have betrayed us in the darkest circumstances. You have delivered us to our enemy. ... You have left the mujahedeen (religious fighters) to confront the greatest world power."
In the tape, the voice belittled Iraq's clerics as unfit.
"Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are having their throats cut by the infidels because of your silence. If you are not knights of God's war, let women do it," the speaker said.
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