Old 10-01-2005, 13:08   #1
aricbcool
Guerrilla Chief
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho
Posts: 819
Iraq Border Offensive

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...
__________________
DPRK should be next...
aricbcool is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2005, 09:51   #2
aricbcool
Guerrilla Chief
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho
Posts: 819
Update

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171006,00.html

Marines Kill at Least Eight Militants in Iraq

QAIM, Iraq — Hundreds of U.S. troops combed through a village near the Syrian border Sunday, breaking into houses and fighting sporadic gun battles with gunmen on the second day of a new offensive against Al Qaeda insurgents. At least eight militants were killed, the military said.

Many residents fled Sadah village into Syria before the offensive began, witnesses said, and the 1,000 U.S. soldiers involved appeared to be widening the sweep into two nearby towns.

In Karabila, troops with loudspeakers warned residents to stay inside their homes for their own safety Sunday, witnesses said. In Rumana, a town on the other side of the Euphrates River, helicopters fired on several houses, sending plumes of black smoke up into the air, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for their security.

A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she could not immediately confirm that the offensive had expanded from Sadah to Karabila and Rumana.

No American casualties were reported in the offensive, which is aimed at rooting out Al Qaeda militants the military believes have been using Sadah as a "sanctuary," closing insurgent supply routes and stemming violence ahead of Iraq's crucial vote on a new constitution on Oct. 15...

...The assault on Sadah, called Operation Iron Fist, was the fourth large U.S. offensive near the Syrian border since May. But the militants running rampant in large parts of western Iraq have proven difficult to put down, fleeing in the face of the assaults, then moving back in after the assaults end and the bulk of troops withdraw.

On Sunday, insurgents hiding in houses fired sporadically on U.S. troops in the street from time to time but Sadah largely was calm, said residents in the village eight miles east of the Syrian border.

On the offensive's first day, troops destroyed several car bombs and at least one roadside bomb, and there were two clashes with gunmen, the military said Sunday in its first detailed report on the operation.

Insurgents drove two vehicles toward a U.S. Marine position, dismounted and began to attack with small-arms fire, the military said Sunday. One vehicle was found to be rigged with explosives. The battle left four insurgents dead, the military said, and a fifth surrendered.

North of Sadah, U.S. forces killed three members of the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgent group after they attacked a U.S. checkpoint with small-arms fire, the military said.

Another militant was killed when a U.S. Cobra helicopter destroyed a vehicle after its driver fired on a Marine position with a rocket-propelled grenade, the military said.

The Cobra also destroyed a second vehicle believed to be carrying grenades, but the vehicle's driver and passenger escaped, the military said.

Sadah, 180 miles northwest of Baghdad, is an isolated village of about 2,000 people, with one main road and about 200 houses scattered in a rural area near Qaim in Iraq's western province of Anbar.

The U.S. military said Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most fearsome militant group that has launched a wave of suicide bombings, had taken control of Sadah, and foreign fighters were using it as a way station as they enter from Syria to join the insurgency.
__________________
DPRK should be next...
aricbcool is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-03-2005, 18:21   #3
aricbcool
Guerrilla Chief
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho
Posts: 819
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171051,00.html

U.S. 'Iron Fist' Offensive Kills At Least 36 Iraq Militants

Monday, October 03, 2005

QAIM, Iraq — A U.S. offensive aimed at Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents in western Iraq entered its third day Monday, with airstrikes in a town on the banks of the Euphrates River, witnesses said. At least 36 militants have died since the fighting began, officials said.

No serious U.S. casualties have been reported in the "Iron Fist" offensive by 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors near the Syrian border...

...The offensive and street fighting come less than two weeks before the national referendum on a new Iraqi constitution. Al Qaeda in Iraq and other groups in the Sunni-led insurgency have killed at least 207 people over the past eight days in a bid to wreck the vote.

On Sunday, Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed to have taken two U.S. Marines captive during the fighting and threatened to kill them within 24 hours unless all female Sunni detainees are released from U.S. and Iraqi prisons in the country. The U.S. military said the claim appeared false but that it was conducting checks "to verify that all Marines are accounted for."...

...The U.S. offensive in western Iraq by 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors began early Saturday in the village of Sadah and has since spread to Karabilah and Rumana, two nearby towns on the banks of the Euphrates River. On Monday, witnesses told The Associated Press that helicopter attacks on Rumana were sending up clouds of black smoke.

No casualties were immediately reported in Monday's fighting by the witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their own safety, or by the U.S. military command center in Baghdad.

The military says Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most feared insurgent group, has turned the area near Iraq's border into a "sanctuary" and a way-station for foreign fighters entering from Syria.

In Karabilah, Marines clashed with insurgents who opened fire from a building on Sunday in a firefight that killed eight militants, the military said.

Most of the militants appeared to have slipped out of Sadah before the force moved in, and hundreds of the village's residents fled into Syria ahead of the assault.

There was "virtually no opposition" in Sadah, the Marine commander in western Anbar province, Col. Stephen W. Davis, told The Associated Press.

At least 28 militants were killed in fighting Sunday, Davis said, bringing the two-day toll among insurgents to 36. There have been no serious U.S. casualties in the operation, he said.

On Monday, a journalist embedded with Marines in eastern Karabilah filed video showing the attack. About 20 Iraqi civilians fled the fighting, and the wounded included an Iraqi mother, father and their child, who were bleeding after being hit by flying pieces of concrete.

At one point, it was reported that as Marine snipers fired from rooftops and U.S. helicopters flew overhead, the military's advance into eastern Karabilah was slowed for about an hour by sporadic gunfire from suspected militants...
__________________
DPRK should be next...
aricbcool is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:48.



Copyright 2004-2022 by Professional Soldiers ®
Site Designed, Maintained, & Hosted by Hilliker Technologies