aricbcool
10-01-2005, 13:08
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170970,00.html
U.S. Forces Launch Iraq Offensive
Saturday, October 01, 2005
QAIM, Iraq — About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in a new offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from the country's most feared militant group, the military said.
The assault, the fourth major sweep since May in the border region, targeted the village of Sadah, which the military said had come under militant control and was a base for foreign fighters entering from Syria...
...The Sadah sweep, named Operation Iron Fist, is aimed at breaking the militants' hold on the town and eliminating a way station for foreign fighters entering from Syria to improve security before Iraq's Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, the military said.
Sunni insurgents have vowed to derail the vote and have launched a surge of violence that has killed at least 200 people — including 15 U.S. service members — in the past six days.
U.S. warplanes and helicopters launched strikes on targets in Sadah, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, according to residents contacted by The Associated Press.
Sadah is a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River about eight miles from the Syrian border in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The isolated community has one main road and about 200 houses scattered over a rural area.
Marines carried out two major operations in the same region, around the main town of Qaim in May, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign, Operation Matador, and about 50 in the second, Operation Spear in mid-June in the town of Karabilah.
Nine Marines were killed in those actions, designed to scatter and eradicate insurgents using the road from Damascus to Baghdad.
In September, thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops fought through the city of Tal Afar in northwest Iraq, also near the border, killing over 150 insurgents and capturing over 300, according to Iraqi military figures.
Two weeks after that offensive, a female homicide bomber infiltrated the city and set off a blast that killed six Iraqi army recruits on Wednesday — illustrating the difficulty of completely putting down militants.
U.S. troops are sparsely spread in the vast Anbar province and other parts of the border region, so they have relied on occasional large offensives to knock insurgents off balance. But officials acknowledge that militants can move back in once the main force is gone.
U.S. forces closed off Sadah. Ammar al-Marsoomi, a doctor at a hospital in Qaim, 13 miles from the village, said initial reports indicated the two Iraqis were wounded in Saturday's assault.
Police in Qaim said Iraqi troops also were participating in the operation, but the U.S. military did not mention an Iraqi role. No coalition or civilian casualties from the offensive were reported...
U.S. Forces Launch Iraq Offensive
Saturday, October 01, 2005
QAIM, Iraq — About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in a new offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from the country's most feared militant group, the military said.
The assault, the fourth major sweep since May in the border region, targeted the village of Sadah, which the military said had come under militant control and was a base for foreign fighters entering from Syria...
...The Sadah sweep, named Operation Iron Fist, is aimed at breaking the militants' hold on the town and eliminating a way station for foreign fighters entering from Syria to improve security before Iraq's Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, the military said.
Sunni insurgents have vowed to derail the vote and have launched a surge of violence that has killed at least 200 people — including 15 U.S. service members — in the past six days.
U.S. warplanes and helicopters launched strikes on targets in Sadah, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, according to residents contacted by The Associated Press.
Sadah is a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River about eight miles from the Syrian border in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The isolated community has one main road and about 200 houses scattered over a rural area.
Marines carried out two major operations in the same region, around the main town of Qaim in May, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign, Operation Matador, and about 50 in the second, Operation Spear in mid-June in the town of Karabilah.
Nine Marines were killed in those actions, designed to scatter and eradicate insurgents using the road from Damascus to Baghdad.
In September, thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops fought through the city of Tal Afar in northwest Iraq, also near the border, killing over 150 insurgents and capturing over 300, according to Iraqi military figures.
Two weeks after that offensive, a female homicide bomber infiltrated the city and set off a blast that killed six Iraqi army recruits on Wednesday — illustrating the difficulty of completely putting down militants.
U.S. troops are sparsely spread in the vast Anbar province and other parts of the border region, so they have relied on occasional large offensives to knock insurgents off balance. But officials acknowledge that militants can move back in once the main force is gone.
U.S. forces closed off Sadah. Ammar al-Marsoomi, a doctor at a hospital in Qaim, 13 miles from the village, said initial reports indicated the two Iraqis were wounded in Saturday's assault.
Police in Qaim said Iraqi troops also were participating in the operation, but the U.S. military did not mention an Iraqi role. No coalition or civilian casualties from the offensive were reported...