 American tanks and aircraft obliterated targets today in and around Karabila, a town close to the Syrian border, as about 1,000 marines swept into the area and began the third major offensive over the last two months in Iraq's western desert frontier, military officials said. Karabila, like other towns along the meandering reaches of the Euphrates River in the desert of western Anbar Province, is suspected of being a link in insurgent supply and infiltration routes, the Iraqi equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
| Obligatory NYT Vietnam reference. |
There have also been sporadic hints that Iraq's most-wanted fugitive, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, could be hiding in the area. The military said that American aircraft used precision-guided weapons to bomb buildings occupied by insurgents who were firing on marines and the Iraqi soldiers who accompanied them in the operation. An Abrams tank fired one round at a vehicle believed to be rigged with explosives and destroyed it.
The action, nicknamed Operation Spear, began early today, the military said. Late this afternoon, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, forwarded a statement saying that the Marines had evacuated four civilian casualties, including two women, to a military medical center for treatment. "There are no other reports of civilian casualties," the statement said. It made no mention of wounded or dead among the insurgents or the American and Iraqi military forces. Karabila, the center of the new offensive, surfaced in press reports on June 11 and 12 after a disputed claim by the American military that precision bombs had destroyed an insurgent checkpoint, purportedly killing 40 of the insurgents. Despite that claim, Reuters quoted local residents who said after the strike that there were no fighters in the area at the time.
| "Lies! All lies! Now go away!" |
The latest action, nicknamed Operation Spear, involves the First Tank Battalion, the Second Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and the Second and Fourth Assault Amphibian Battalion, the military said, as well as American aircraft. |