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U.S. offensive begins after attacks on Marines
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military has launched a new offensive against insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq's Anbar province, an area that has been the scene of a string of deadly attacks on American forces this week.About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers are participating in Operation Quick Strike, which began Wednesday. The offensive was not retaliatory but planned in advance of three insurgent attacks that killed 21 Marines earlier this week in Haditha and Hit, Sunni Arab cities along the Euphrates River, said Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the U.S.-led Combined Press Information Center. Since spring, several American offensives have been conducted in this region along the Euphrates that snakes into Syria. The U.S. military said it is hunting down fighters reportedly infiltrating Iraq from the country's long, porous border with Syria. On Friday, Iraqi special operations forces directed a Marine airstrike on insurgents firing from buildings near Haqliniya, southwest of Haditha. A U.S. military statement said Quick Strike's "objective is to interdict and disrupt insurgents and foreign terrorists' presence in the Haditha, Haqliniya and Barwana area." The military said intelligence gathered in recent operations shows "that terrorists are operating in these cities and surrounding areas." Stronger explosives The military also said it was concerned that insurgents were developing stronger explosive devices, such as the weapon used in an attack that killed 14 U.S. Marines near Haditha on Wednesday. Military sources said they believe recent evidence suggests neighboring countries are being used as routes to smuggle "shaped charges" into Iraq. These types of explosives produce concentrated blasts that penetrate targets such as armored vehicles. The Marines killed in Wednesday's roadside blast were using an amphibious assault vehicle. It's not known whether U.S. forces have captured such shipments or if these explosives were used in the deadly Haditha attack. The blast that killed the 14 Marines marked one of the deadliest attacks on American forces in the Iraq war. Six Marines also died Monday in a firefight in Haditha, and a suicide bomber killed another Marine that same day in Hit. Twenty-eight U.S. troops have died in Iraq this week. Posted by: DEEK 2005-08-05 |
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