IRAQ: American troops killed 75 insurgents in the first 24 hours of a large-scale offensive against the hideouts of foreign militants and arms smuggling routes in a remote border area of western Iraq, the US army said yesterday.
The operation involved marines, sailors and soldiers, backed by US air support. A US military statement declined to say how many soldiers were involved and gave no details of American casualties.
A correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, who is embedded with US forces in the area, reported that more than 1,000 US soldiers with air support had swept through villages on the edge of the city of Obeidi, near the Syrian border.
In the last month, US and Iraqi forces have intensified operations against suspected militant bases in Iraq, particularly those along the porous Syrian border, where foreign fighters are believed to be entering Iraq to join the insurgency.
Colonel Bob Chase said the operation to "capture and kill anti-Iraqi forces" began on Saturday in a desert region of the restive Anbar province, north of the Euphrates. "Anti-Iraqi forces" is the catch-all name used by the US to describe insurgents in Iraq.
The offensive had been inspired by "significant intelligence" from "brave" local Iraqis, said Col Chase. Most of the militants were foreign fighters, he added. "These are in fact foreign fighters, based on the casualties and the dead and the equipment retrieved. There is clearly a movement route from outside of Iraq to some of the major cities. They have sanctuaries, mostly along the Syria border."
The announcement of the new offensive came as US forces and Iraqi authorities tried to wrest the propaganda initiative from insurgents who have unleashed a deadly wave of car bombs, suicide attacks, ambushes and assassinations in Iraqi cities in a bid to destabilise the new government.
More than 300 Iraqis have been killed during the recent surge of violence. In April, some 135 car bombs exploded - up from 69 in March - the largest monthly figure in the two years.
Yesterday, at least four people were killed and eight wounded when a suicide car bomb was detonated at a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad.
Lethal attacks on Iraq's fledgling security forces are now commonplace, but Iraqi officials say the casualty figures do not appear to be affecting recruitment.
"There are now, for the first time, more Iraqi security forces than US-led forces in Iraq, and the number is growing," a defence ministry official in Baghdad said. - (Guardian Service)