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RUTBAH, Iraq — Page Content As the sun beams down on the backs of sand-covered Marines and Iraqi soldiers, a small explosion goes off and a cloud of smoke rises to the sky. No one seeks cover or shouts warnings of ‘incoming,’ but instead Marines and Iraqi soldiers calmly ignore the blast and continue their trek through the desert. In this operation, success was measured on how many times small explosions break the desert calm as Marines of Regimental Combat Team 8 and the Iraqi Army’s 7th Field Engineering Regiment swept through a patch of desert outside the town of...

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. A Marine Corps general taking over command in Iraq's Anbar province said Wednesday that the decrease in insurgent attacks and decline in casualties is allowing U.S. troops to focus more attention on training of Iraqi security forces. "We want to work ourselves out of a job," said Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly, who is scheduled to take command of Marines in western Iraq. Kelly said the Iraqi army has been successfully patrolling and escorting convoys in the Anbar province without the support of U.S. troops. "Basically, we are taking the training wheels off," the general said shortly...

Iraq’s western border becoming more secure by Norris Jones Gulf Region Central District US Army Corps of Engineers (GRD Photos) Al Asad, Iraq -- Iraq’s western border with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will now be more secure thanks to a continuous line of outposts that will be completed this month.U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Central District (GRC) was responsible for overseeing that work which included 23 border forts overlooking nearly 600 kilometers of Iraq’s remote western frontier. The final fort, Border Fort 32, located along the Saudi Arabian border, was recently completed. Each of those castle-like,...

The U.S. military said it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency. The insurgents have assassinated 11 tribal leaders in the Ramadi area since the end of last year, when Sunni sheiks in the city began open cooperation with the U.S. military. The insurgent attacks since then have all but frozen the cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders...

AL ASAD, Iraq - Recent offensives near the Iraqi border with Syria have dealt a significant blow to al-Qaida and cut off the group's ability to smuggle in foreigners through the volatile western area to join the insurgency, a U.S. commander said Sunday. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, commander of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, said the operations had "neutralized" the group's ability to use the vast Euphrates River valley to organize and attract followers. The fighting helped restore Iraqi control of the border with Syria to eliminate smuggling lines and paved the way for successful Sunni Arab regional participation...

Jack Kelly: Shooting the new messenger An article about blogger Bill Roggio shows mainstream media running scared Sunday, January 01, 2006 It was the journalistic equivalent of a drive-by shooting. The targets of Washington Post reporters Jonathan Finer and Doug Struck were two of journalism's favorites: Web loggers and the U.S. military.           "Bloggers, Money, Now Weapons in Information War," read the headline over their story, which appeared Monday. "U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage," the subhed said. "Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey...

BAGHDAD, Dec 12 (PG) - Security operations in western Iraq have killed more than 750 insurgents and captured almost 2,000 in the past few weeks, a senior defense ministry official said Monday. "Enemy casualties in the Euphrates Valley have reached 753 killed and 58 wounded," General Abdel Aziz Mohammed told a press conference in Baghdad. "The number of detained is 1,978 and includes an emir (insurgent cell chief) named Khalaf Fanus who was turned in to police forces by his family. "All zones along the valley have been cleared and we are maintaining an Iraqi and multinational military presence there...

A TOWN IN ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq, Dec. 9, 2005 – Reconstruction is now evident here, due to the improved security environment that followed the November 2004 battle for Fallujah. Though homes are humble, many of them have bricks stacked or heaped alongside, their second stories inching upward. Roads are pitted and pockmarked, but there's little trash blowing along them. Too many children wander streets instead of attending school, yet they are markedly cleaner than those normally seen on Iraqi back roads, and almost all of them are wearing shoes. Even as the U.S. military positioned for that inevitable showdown in...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Two Marines were killed in a bombing in the small Iraqi town of Ubaydi on Monday. Another fell in small-arms fire the same day. And at least five more Marines whose names have not been released died in a blast as they rushed a house in the same town Wednesday. Among the confirmed casualties from Camp Pendleton was Maj. Ray Mendoza Jr., 37, of Columbus, Ohio, Echo Company commander for the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Eight Marines in all, at least three of them from Camp Pendleton, have been killed this week in fresh fighting in...

US and Iraqi troops started a large-scale operation in a flashpoint western Iraqi city near the Syrian border on Wednesday following a similar offensive in a nearby town, the US military said on Friday. "Iraqi army soldiers and US forces have begun clear-and-hold operations in the city of Karabilah near Husaybah town, close to the Syrian border," the US military said in a statement. The offensive is the continuation of Operation Steel Curtain, which was staged by the US-Iraqi forces in Husaybah, as intelligence services said some insurgents, driven out of Husaybah, fled to nearby Karabilah. On Tuesday night, the...

Late Friday I conducted an interview with Colonel Stephen W. Davis, the Commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team - 2, who is responsible for fighting in western Anbar province, also known as AO Denver. Col. Davis made himself available for a phone interview via phone, and I appreciate his patience with communications problems (between the the cell and satellite phone it was quite a challenge). Bill: StrategyPage.com recently reported on the creation of the Desert Protect Force to patrol the Syrian border, which is comprised of local tribal groups. Is this accurate? And if so, are is it working closely...

HADITHA, Iraq - U.S. troops pushed through streets sown with bombs Tuesday in their biggest operation this year in western Iraq, seeking to retake three Euphrates River towns from al-Qaida insurgents. A At least five U.S. service members have been killed in the fighting. Operation River Gate — launched at the start of the holy month of Ramadan — was the second U.S. offensive in a week in Anbar province, near the Syrian border. Al-Qaida in Iraq called for intensified attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces during the Muslim period of fasting, which started Tuesday for the nation's Sunnis.

BAGHDAD Iraqi and U.S. forces have stepped up their offensive against rebels in the northern town of Tal Afar, while tightening security on the nearby Syrian border, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Friday. Jaafari also said that the government would increase security controls along the border with Syria, saying that it had already tightened security on the border between Nineveh Province in the north of Iraq and Syria. Tal Afar, an insurgent stronghold, is believed to provide a shortcut for foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq to join the Iraqi insurgency. The U.S. military announced Thursday that U.S.-led forces were preparing to...

BAGHDAD, Sept 8 (KUNA) -- A member of Al-Qaeda terrorist network was killed on Wednesday in an air strike executed by US planes over a house used by the network in western Iraq, said a US Army statement on Thursday. The statement added that the house was being used by members of the network and that the militant killed, identified only as Abu Ali, had been one of the main aides to Al-Qaeda in Heitt, Qaem, Karbala and Husaiba. It added that Abu Ali was also affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Mosul, including a person called Abu Talha who was arrested...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2005 – About 1,000 Iraqi security force soldiers and U.S. Marines from Regimental Combat Team 2 moved into the city of Haqliniyah, Iraq, and the surrounding area today as part of Operation Quick Strike. The operation began Aug. 3 with Iraqi soldiers and U.S. Marines positioning their units. Coalition forces confirmed through gathered intelligence that terrorists are operating in these cities and surrounding areas. Iraqi special operations forces this morning directed an air strike on terrorists hiding in buildings outside of Haqliniyah, about seven kilometers southwest of Haditha, where 20 Marines were killed in two widely reported...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops pounded insurgents with bombs and tank cannons Friday during a major offensive along a stretch of the Euphrates River valley where 22 Marines were killed this week. About 800 U.S. Marines and 180 Iraqi soldiers moved into Haqlaniyah, one of a cluster of western towns in Anbar province around the Haditha Dam that is believed to be a stronghold of Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters. Heavy Abrams tanks battled insurgents armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, while U.S. jets destroyed at least four buildings _ two of which were found booby-trapped with...

BAGHDAD, Iraq- The American military said today it had begun a major offensive backed by fighter jets and tanks in the rebellious desert region of western Iraq, where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for the Americans. With a first draft of the new constitution due in just 10 days, the country's most revered Shiite cleric made explicit recommendations for the first time. The cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, wants Islam to be "the main source" of legislation, supports regional autonomy and backs an electoral system that would...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces launched attacks in western Iraq in an operation aimed at disrupting insurgents and foreign fighters in the Euphrates River valley, the U.S. military said Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The operation, dubbed Quick Strike, began Wednesday with Iraqi soldiers and Marines positioning their units, said a military statement. They focused on an area centered around the cities of Haditha, Haqlaniyah, and Parwana, about 130 miles northwest of Baghdad. On Wednesday, 14 Marines and their civilian translator were killed when their vehicle was hit by a massive roadside bomb near Haditha as they were...

BAGHDAD, Aug. 2 -- The military announced Tuesday that six U.S. Marines were killed in action near the city of Haditha in western Iraq Monday. A seventh died when a suicide car-bomb exploded during combat operations near Hit, south of Haditha, the military said. The deaths brought to 17 the number of military personnel who have died in the past week, many of them in the same region. About 60 have been killed during the past month, according to wire service counts. The announcement Tuesday gave few details of the latest deaths. The military said in its statement that the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Marines battled insurgents with tanks and aircraft Sunday in western Iraq after the Americans came under attack from a village schoolhouse, the U.S. military said. Eleven insurgents were killed, the military said. The statement did not say whether any Marines were killed or wounded in the battle, which started when Marines from Regimental Combat Team-2 were attacked with mortar fire from a schoolhouse in a village near Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The building was rigged with explosives and fortified with at least three .30 caliber machine guns in the windows, a military statement said....