US troops battled insurgents yesterday that were holed up inside a dusty frontier town in the American military's latest campaign to stop the infiltration of foreign fighters from neighboring Syria.
At least 100 insurgents were captured on the first day of Operation Spear, which saw about 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces, backed by main battle tanks, fight their way into Karabilah in Anbar province.
US fighter aircraft dropped bombs and the tanks fired shells at insurgents holed up inside buildings in Karabilah, about 320km west of Baghdad. In Baghdad, a 10-year-old Iraqi girl was killed yesterday and two people were injured when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy in the capital's Jihad neighborhood.
Two Iraqis were also injured when another roadside bomb missed another US military convoy in Baghdad's western Radwaniya suburb, according to a hospital.
Four suicide attacks around Iraq, including one in the capital, killed 11 people Friday as rebels seeking to lead Iraq into a civil war intensified the pace and scope of attacks against Iraq's still-weak security forces. More than 60 people have died in suicide attacks over the past two days. During daylong battles Friday, Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought "insurgents holed up in buildings within the city," Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.
"Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed these targets. Only buildings occupied by insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed. Three buildings were confirmed destroyed," Pool said.
Marines carried out two major operations in the area last month, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign, Operation Matador, and 14 in the second, Operation New Market. Eleven Marines were killed in those two actions, designed to scatter and eradicate insurgents using the road from Damascus to Baghdad. During Friday's assault, troops captured about 100 foreign fighters and discovered at least one car bomb factory. Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier anti-insurgent offensives but Chase said this time they not only fought alongside Americans, but used their language skills and knowledge of the area to spot foreign fighters.
US intelligence believes the area in Iraq's western desert is the main entry point used by extremist groups such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq to smuggle foreign fighters into the country. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington to tighten control of its porous 610km border with Iraq.
The area has been flush with insurgents in recent weeks. Marines carried out June 11 airstrikes that killed about 40 militants after a nearly five-hour gunfight near Karabilah. Insurgent in the area also killed 21 people -- beheading three of them -- thought to be a group of missing Iraqi soldiers. The bodies were found June 10.
At least 1,095 people have been killed since the Shiite-led government was announced in late April.
According to an AP count, from April 26 through June 16, at least 136 vehicle bombings have killed at least 492 people and wounded at least 1,409. In addition, at least 10 suicide bombers, wearing explosives, have killed at least 188 people and wounded at least 493. The number of insurgents killed in that period is thought to be more than 290.
Also yesterday, the body of doctor Mundir Mohammed Abbaswas found in southern Baghdad. His hands were bound and he had been shot in the head. It was unclear why he was killed.
The body of a Sunni tribal leader, Sheikh Arkan Shaalan Jassim al-Edwan, was also found shot dead yesterday by police near Mahmoudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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