Ten US Marines were killed by an Iraqi bomb in one of the bloodiest incidents of the war for Americans, a day after US President George W. Bush laid out a strategy he said would defeat the insurgency.
And in a videotape message shown on Friday, Iraqi insurgents holding four Western hostages threatened to kill them if Iraqi detainees are not released by Dec. 8.
Thursday's attack on the Marines, two weeks before Iraqis vote for a new parliament, struck a foot patrol near Fallujah. Eleven Marines were wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED), the military said on Friday.
PHOTO: AP
"The patrol was attacked with an IED fashioned from several large artillery shells," the Marines said.
Seven of the wounded had returned to active duty.
US commanders have expressed concern in recent months at the increasing use of more powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs. The high death toll on Thursday indicated an extremely powerful blast.
Typically, US troops keep themselves well spaced out when on foot patrols to avoid the risk of mass casualties.
Local officials in Fallujah said they were aware of a bomb attack on US troops overnight near Amiriya, 30km south of Fallujah. US officials declined further comment, however, and it was unclear if this was the same incident.
In August, 14 Marines were killed when a landmine destroyed their armored vehicle near Haditha in western Iraq. Other heavy tolls have been inflicted on Americans when helicopters have been brought down and when a suicide bomber devastated a US army mess hall last December in Mosul, killing 21 people.
Fallujah was the site of the biggest battle since US forces toppled former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in April 2003 -- dozens of troops and hundreds of Iraqis were killed in the city, 50km west of Baghdad in November last year.
Since then Fallujah has been relatively quiet but the wider province of Anbar, comprising much of Iraq's western desert, has remained a stronghold of Sunni Arab groups opposed to the occupation and the Shiite-led government it helped install.
Some guerrilla forces are loyal to the Islamist goals of al-Qaeda and the movement's appointed leader in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but many are more secular in outlook and owe loyalties principally to tribal or nationalist leaders or to Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath party, now outlawed.
Arabic television station Al Jazeera showed a tape of what it said were two Canadian hostages receiving food from their captors. An American and a Briton were shown speaking in what the channel said was a call for detainees to be released.
It was not possible to hear what the men were saying.
"They gave those concerned with the hostages until the 8th of this month before killing them if their demands are not met," the Arabic broadcaster said.
The four, seized in Baghdad, are members of the peace and humanitarian organization Christian Peacemaker Teams, one of the few remaining aid groups operating in Iraq.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called the threat "a callous act of terror against innocent people."
A State Department official strongly condemned the actions of those holding the humanitarian workers.
"We call for their immediate and unconditional release and for the release of all hostages in Iraq," said the official, who asked not to be named.
Separately, the mother and sister of a German woman, Susanne Osthoff, taken hostage in Iraq called on her kidnappers to show mercy and release her in an appeal shown on Al Jazeera.
More than 100 foreigners have been seized by insurgents in Iraq in the past two years. Some kidnappers demanded foreign forces quit Iraq, others sought ransoms and some both.
In Ramadi, Anbar's regional capital to the west of Fallujah, about 500 US and Iraqi troops launched an operation they said was designed to disrupt guerrilla activity before the election.
Insurgents staged a show of force in the city on Thursday, firing mortar rounds near a US base and official buildings. Letting themselves be filmed by news cameramen, masked men wielding rifles and grenade launchers distributed leaflets saying al-Qaeda was in charge of the town.
Within hours, however, the gunmen had gone from the streets and there was no sign of them on Friday.
Bush and his Republican Party are under pressure at home over the rising American death toll -- which the Pentagon put at 2,125 on Friday -- and the president has embarked on a new series of speeches aimed at shoring up support for a project which he says will bring peace and democracy to Iraq through an election on Dec. 15.
Faced with widespread resentment among Iraqis at the US presence and mounting calls in the US to bring the soldiers home, Bush said on Wednesday he would set no timetable for the withdrawal of the 160,000 or so US troops.
"I will settle for nothing less than complete victory," he said, adding that some reduction in troop levels might be possible as Iraqi security forces assumed a bigger role.
Meanwhile, four more US soldiers have died in Iraq, including a marine in the restive town of Ramadi, the Pentagon announced yesterday
During the latest anti-insurgent operation in Ramadi, a soldier died of wounds sustained when a rocket struck his vehicle on Thursday.
The city 110km west of Baghdad was the scene of rebel action on Thursday but the US command minimized the seriousness of the appearance of armed men in broad daylight, saying it was a largely symbolic action for propaganda purposes.
On Friday, three soldiers died in a car accident in Balad, north of Baghdad.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was