U.S. Battles Al-Qaeda Near Syria

[David]

AP


About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in an offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, the military said.

The assault, the latest in a series of major operations this year by U.S. forces in the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency, targeted the village of Sadah, which the military said was a base for al Qaeda militants and foreign fighters entering from Syria.

U.S. warplanes and helicopters launched strikes on targets in Sadah, sending smoke billowing into the sky, residents contacted by The Associated Press said.

The force, made up mostly of Marines, but also with soldiers and Navy sailors, rolled into the village in the morning and gunfire was heard, said a correspondent for CNN embedded with the troops. Helicopters fired on three suspicious vehicles along the way, two of which turned out to be carrying suicide bombers and the third was being loaded with weapons, CNN reported.

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.

The offensive, named Operation Iron Fist, aimed to root out al Qaeda militants who have taken hold of the village and use it as a base for attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces, the military said in a statement.

It also aimed to stop foreign fighters from entering the country from Syria and improving security in the region before Iraq's Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, the military said. Sunni insurgents have vowed to derail the referendum and have launched a surge of violence that has killed at least 200 people, including 13 U.S. service members, in the past six days.

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 were also taking part in the operation, but the U.S. military did not mention an Iraqi role. No coalition or civilian casualties were immediately reported by the U.S. military.

In other developments:


A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier on a Saturday morning patrol in central Baghdad, the military said. No other details on the attack were given. The name of the Task Force Baghdad soldier was withheld pending notification of next of kin. The attack raised to at least 1,934 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.


Gunmen kidnapped the brother of Iraq's interior minister as he drove home in Baghdad on Saturday, the ministry said. Jebbar Jabr Solagh was snatched as he drove home to the capital's mainly Shiite district of Sadr City, a minsitry spokesman told The Associated Press. Solagh is the brother of Interior Minister Baqir Jabr Solagh, the Shiite head of Iraq's police forces, which have been battling Sunni-led insurgents along with the Iraqi and U.S. militaries.


A U.S. soldier and an Afghan soldier have been killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. Another U.S. soldier and two other Afghan National Army soldiers were also wounded in the small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade attack, which occurred Friday during combat operations north of the city of Kandahar, the military said.


A roadside bomb exploded on a bridge in Basra on Saturday, hitting a Danish patrol and wounding three of its soldiers, police said. The attack occurred on Al-Asafyaa Bridge in the Al-Karma section of Basra, a city in southern Iraq, shortly after noon, said police Capt. Mushtaq Kadim.


The U.S. military released about 500 Iraqi detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison out the outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday, completing its plan to free a total of more than 1,000 this week in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The release, made at the request of Iraq's government, also appeared to be part of its effort to persuade Iraqis to vote in the Oct. 15 national referendum, especially the country's minority Sunnis.


The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group, condemned the Balad and Hillah attacks this week that killed 110 people, saying "such sinful acts only serve the schemes of the occupiers" by widening the gap between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites. The party urged Iraqis "to stop the violence and solve their problems by words, not weapons."


Gunmen shot and killed Iraqi army Lt. Col. Hatam Baani Mohammed Al-Rubaiee while as he traveling to work in Baghdad, said police Maj. Falah Al-Mohammadawi.