csua.org/u/dyg -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110701132.html
Manage Your Newsletters Troops Fend Off Attacks in West Four US Soliders Die in Suicide Strike South of Baghdad By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, November 8, 2005; Troops "continue to be attacked by small groups of terrorists," the milit ary said, adding that there had been four incidents of insurgents assaul ting US Marines and Iraqi soldiers from inside mosques and one attack from inside a school.
US Marines and Iraqi soldiers prepare to enter a house near the Sy rian border. A Marine died Sunday in the offensive, in its third day yes terday. US Marines and Iraqi soldiers prepare to enter a house near the Syrian border. A Marine died Sunday in the offensive, in its third day yesterda y (By Cpl.
More News The US military reported Monday that a Marine was killed by small-arms fire Sunday -- the first US fatality of the offensive, named Operation Steel Curtain -- and that nine US service members had been injured. A bout 40 insurgents have been confirmed killed, the military statement sa id. In separate violence on Monday, four US soldiers died when a suicide ca r bomber attacked their checkpoint on a road south of Baghdad, and late Sunday a soldier was killed by a roadside bomb near the town of Dawr, ab out 85 miles north of Baghdad, the US military said in statements. Khaleel Dulaimi, an official with the Red Crescent Society, said 29 civil ians had been killed in the border offensive. Dulaimi was interviewed at a refugee camp east of the city of Qaim, which is about 10 miles from H usaybah and has also been targeted in the offensive. Majbil Ahmad Mihalawi, a Qaim official, said 76 houses and four schools h ad been destroyed and two mosques had been severely damaged in the city. Water, sewer and electric systems also suffered major damage, he said. The US military said in its statement that it knew of no civilian casua lties. "Terrorists are using sensitive and critical infrastructure as protection from Coalition and Iraqi Army counterattacks," the military said. Marin es were using "proportionate force in responding to attacks" while respe cting "the sanctity of the mosques," the statement said, adding that no airstrike had been conducted against any mosque. Senior US military officials said the offensive in western Iraq, center ed around a border crossing with Syria about 200 miles west of Baghdad, had multiple aims -- most important among them reestablishing Iraqi cont rol of the border and stopping the flow of foreign fighters, weapons and money into Iraq. Other goals include destroying al Qaeda safe houses in the area, killing or capturing the group's leaders and disrupting the o rganization's command-and-control capabilities in the desert of Anbar pr ovince. "What we saw developing over time was that the terrorist and foreign figh ters were using villages and towns in al Anbar as safe havens -- that's where they were stockpiling munitions, that's where they were involved i n building their bombs, that's where they were conducting their training ," Maj Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior US military spokesman in Baghdad, sa id in an interview. US warplanes conducted nine airstrikes on Saturday and 10 on Sunday "us ing precision-guided munitions to ensure destruction of the target while limiting collateral damage," according to a military statement. In the eight days preceding the offensive, US airstrikes destroyed at least 1 1 safe houses in and around Husaybah, killing at least nine of al Qaeda' s top local leaders and more than a dozen other members of the group, ac cording to the US military. Elsewhere in Iraq, six people were killed and nine were wounded in a mort ar attack on civilian houses near Iraq's Ministry of Youth and Sport in the Mustansiriya neighborhood of eastern Baghdad, according to Gen. And at least nine people, including s ix Iraqi policemen, were killed in a suicide car bombing in the Dora nei ghborhood of southern Baghdad, news services reported. In another attack, three armed men entered an Internet cafe in the northe rn city of Mosul on Monday and assassinated Ahmed Hussein Maliki, the nu mber two editor of Tall Afar Today newspaper, according to an employee o f the paper, who asked not to be named because of security concerns. He said the paper recently moved its offices from Tall Afar to Mosul, 35 mi les to the east, because of threats against the staff.
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