U.S., Iraqi troops launch strike near Syria

Baghdad, Iraq ? About 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops, backed by aircraft, tanks and amphibious vehicles, fanned out in a coordinated strike near the Syrian border Friday in search of insurgents.

Heavy street fighting was reported in the town of Karabilah as U.S. forces engaged insurgents in the guerrilla stronghold. Marines reported destroying three buildings housing insurgents, while two suspected vehicle bombs also were blown up.

The assault, dubbed Operation Spear, was the third large-scale attack led by U.S. Marines in volatile Al Anbar province in the past six weeks. The area has long been the main bastion of Iraqi Sunni Arab guerrillas and foreign fighters filtering in via the porous Syrian frontier.

Two more Marines were slain by a roadside bomb near Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar, the military said Friday. Their killings on Thursday were the latest in a surge of U.S. military deaths in the province, mostly resulting from improvised bombs placed along the region’s perilous routes. At least 21 U.S. troops have been killed in Al Anbar since June 9.

Operation Spear is focusing on Karabilah, where Marines and insurgents have clashed on several occasions in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Marines said, a U.S. airstrike on an insurgent checkpoint along a main road outside of Karabilah killed an estimated 40 insurgents, although local residents later disputed that, saying no guerrillas had been in the area.

Deaths in Iraq

As of Friday, June 17, 2005, at least 1,717 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,321 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include five military civilians.

The AP count is the same as the Defense Department’s tally, last updated at 9 a.m. Friday.

The British military has reported 89 deaths; Italy, 25; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Spain, 11; Bulgaria, 12; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,578 U.S. military members have died, according to AP’s count. That includes at least 1,212 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

“It has become clear to us that there’s a very widespread intimidation campaign going on against the locals in and around the town,” Col. Bob Chase, operations chief of the 2nd Marine Division, said Friday.

There was no word on U.S. or overall casualties in Friday’s operation. The military reported that four civilians were injured and evacuated to a nearby medical center for treatment. All four were injured “after terrorists seized their home and fired at Marines and soldiers,” a U.S. statement said.

Dr. Hamid Alousi, director of the General Hospital in nearby Qaim, said half a dozen bodies were stuck under a bombed house in Karabilah. “We can’t get them out because of the continuous bombing,” Alousi said.

More than 100 Iraqi troops were accompanying U.S. forces on Operation Spear, Chase said.

Al Anbar is a largely Sunni Arab province that has long been hostile to the presence of U.S. troops and the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

The central government in Baghdad exercises little direct control in Al Anbar, where the vast majority of the population stayed away from polling places during the Jan. 30 election. Shiite Muslims and Kurds emerged as Iraq’s new political power brokers, while Sunni Arabs from Al Anbar and elsewhere have relatively little representation in the new transitional government.

U.S. forces are stretched thin in the huge province and recruiting local residents to join the armed forces has been difficult, since many people are hostile to the government or fear guerrilla retribution. Many Iraqi units assigned to Al Anbar are largely composed of Shiite and Kurdish recruits from other provinces.