Posted on 06/18/2005 7:47:58 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Some 50 rebels have been killed and another 100 captured since the start of a joint US-Iraqi offensive in western Iraq, the US military says. It reported no military or civilian losses since Operation Spear began on Friday, but Iraqi doctors spoke of at least 10 civilian deaths.
The operation - involving some 1,000 troops - aims to root out rebels and foreign fighters on the Syrian border. A second major operation in the area began on Saturday to find arms caches.
About 1,000 US and Iraqi troops were taking part in Operation Dagger, which also targeted what the US military believed was a rebel base north-west of the capital, Baghdad. The two operations follow a week of attacks which left at least 11 American soldiers dead. 'Insurgent haven' "Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began yesterday [Friday] morning," US marine Capt Jeffrey Pool said.
The offensive in the province of Anbar began before dawn on Friday, with witnesses reporting fierce gun battles in the towns of Karabila and Qaim.
Fighter planes dropped bombs on suspected rebel safe houses and weapons caches in the area, some 20km (12 miles) east of Iraq's border with Syria. Other bombs reportedly targeted rebels who were firing at US ground forces. "Marines and Iraqi soldiers continued operations through the night securing key objectives in and around the city [of Karabila]," Capt Pool said. He said four Iraqi hostages had been found beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker located in central Karabila. Meanwhile, Iraqi doctors in Qaim said they had received the bodies of at least 10 Iraqi civilians. American officials say the western border area has become a new haven for insurgents who sheltered in Falluja until the US offensive last November. They say that foreign fighters continue to slip into the country from Syria, but Damascus rejects the accusations.
|
Damnit! If no Americans die, its not news! Stop printing things like this! How are we supposed to stop the war, impeach Bush and get back our power if good stories are written?
Really putting the crunch to them NOW!!!
The country will never be right until the Libs are in power, then all will be well, just like it was when Bubba was Prez.
GOOD! Pray for our military to be protected and kill the enemy they seek and for the enemy within too be exposed!
fyi
LOL. Here you have yet another case of Iraqis being involved in cleaning up their country but you hardly hear a word of it in the media.
But if one suicide bomber among them blows up a bunch of his comrades, THAT will be the lead story.
Add a couple of zeros to that 50 and I'll be a lot happier. Die terrorist jackels...
I mistakenly posted in another thread the information that my neighbor has a nephew in Iraq and according to him (nephew) the number of terrorists being killed are vastly under reported by a factor of at least 10.
I sure hope it's true.
Though I will say the WH needs to start getting back out there and reestablishing the fact to the American public that we are at WAR and will continue to be for some time.
And this doesn't just mean GWB. It means the whole PR apparatus should be focusing on ways to keep the American public truly informed on this continuing war and all our successes. We need to counter the daily MSM negative spin.
Soldiers on the ground around the globe are doing their part to kick as$ the WH (and the RNC for that matter) need to make sure they are doing their part back here!!
.
So, what's the true grit of our SOLDIERS, one wonders..?
MEL's -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts
.
Morning Ronnie!
Bump!
The difference in this story from the BBC and the one from AP is that in this one they use the word "claims" success.
*************************************************
Today: June 18, 2005 at 8:10:58 PDT
KARABILAH, Iraq (AP) -
0617iraq U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces battled insurgents on two fronts Saturday in a restive western province, killing about 50 militants in a dusty frontier town in the military's latest campaign to stop foreign fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria.
The military also announced Saturday that two U.S. soldiers were killed and one was wounded during a small-arms skirmish with insurgents late Friday while transporting a detainee near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. A civilian and the detainee also were killed, and five Iraqi police officers were wounded.
At least 1,718 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Operation Spear, or Romhe in Arabic, was in its second day in Karabilah, about 200 miles west of Baghdad, in Anbar province. Karabilah, which is along the Syrian border, long has been considered an insurgent hotbed.
"The goal is not to seize territory," said Marine Col. Stephen Davis, a commander from New Rochelle, N.Y. "This is about going in and finding the insurgents. This is not a walk-through-the-river exercise."
Three U.S. troops have been wounded since the operation began Friday, Davis said. The campaign involves about 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces backed by battle tanks. About 100 insurgents have been captured, the military said.
"Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began," Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.
A second campaign of about the same size, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday - this one targeting the marshy shores of a remote lake north of Baghdad. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, backed by fighter jets and tanks, were participating.
Operation Dagger, or Khanjar in Arabic, is seeking insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the southern part of the Lake Tharthar area, 53 miles northwest of Baghdad.
On March 23, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed about 85 militants at a suspected training camp along Lake Tharthar. That raid turned up booby-trapped cars, suicide-bomber vests, weapons and training documents. The insurgents included Iraqis, Filipinos, Algerians, Moroccans, Afghans and Arabs from neighboring countries, officials said.
In Karabilah, Marines and Iraqi forces fought their way into the town. On Friday, U.S. fighter aircraft dropped bombs and the tanks fired shells at insurgents holed up inside buildings.
"Marines and Iraqi soldiers continued operations through the night, securing key objectives in and around the city while conducting presence patrols in order to hamper the insurgents' movement," Pool said.
During their sweep, four Iraqi hostages were found "beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker."
Marines carried out two major operations around Qaim last month, killing 125 insurgents in Operation Matador and 14 in Operation New Market. Eleven Marines were killed in those actions, which targeted insurgents using the road from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad.
The new campaign began just before dawn Friday in the desert wastes around Karabilah and Qaim.
Troops captured about 100 foreign fighters and discovered at least one car bomb factory, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the Second Marine Division. U.S. and Iraqi troops encountered some resistance, but Chase did not characterize it as significant.
Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier offensives. This time, they not only fought alongside the Americans but used their language skills and local knowledge to spot foreign fighters, Chase said.
U.S. military intelligence officials believe the area is the main entry point used by extremist groups such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq to smuggle foreign fighters into the country. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile 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 on the outskirts of Karabilah. Insurgents also killed 21 people - beheading three of them - believed to be a group of missing Iraqi soldiers. The bodies were found June 10.
More than 1,100 people have been killed since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced in April.
In other violence Saturday, insurgents killed at least four people in Baghdad, including two Iraqi soldiers and a 10-year-old girl, hospital and police officials said. Twenty people - including an Iraqi journalist - were wounded.
The girl was killed and two people were wounded when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy, said Dr. Muhand Jawad of Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk hospital.
A suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army convoy in the Yarmouk neighborhood, killing two soldiers and wounding six near a dangerous highway - also known as the Street of Death - leading from downtown to the airport, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
An Iraqi reporter working for the Saudi-owned television network Al-Arabiya was shot in the neck while leaving a Baghdad restaurant, the station said. Jawad Khadim, believed to be in his mid-30s, was seriously wounded.
The body of a Sunni tribal leader also was found Saturday outside Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Sheikh Arkan Shaalan Jassim al-Edwan, who had been shot, was sprawled on a roadside portrait of Saddam Hussein, police Lt. Adnan Abdullah said.
--
Now that's in intriging paragraph. I'd love to know who this guy is so I'd know that finding him sprawled on a picture of Saddam means.
I like it! - Operation SMEAR - the RNC should get on this - They should really start taking the fight to the DEM's on a whole for allowing the type of attacks that Durbin and others have been saying (as part of the Democratic Party).
The 2006 elections we should move to make about how the Democratic party has become anti-American. anti-American success.
This is really an angle the RNC should look to.
Bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.