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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS