U.S. strikes near Syria border
Baghdad  U.S. forces launched an offensive against insurgents in western Iraq near the Syrian border, and about 75 militants were killed in the first 24 hours, the military said Monday.
It said the offensive, being conducted with U.S. air support in a desert area of Anbar province north of the Euphrates River, was targeting a sanctuary for foreign insurgents and a smuggling route.
The Chicago Tribune reported Monday that more than 1,000 U.S. troops supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships on Sunday attacked villages in and around Obeidi.
The report, by a journalist embedded with the U.S. forces, said the offensive “was seeking to uproot a persistent insurgency in an area that American intelligence indicated has become a haven for foreign fighters flowing in from Syria.”
Advertisements
Also Monday, a suicide car bomb killed three Iraqis in Baghdad, police said. U.S. forces detained 13 suspected militants, including one who may have plotted an attempt to kill former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, the military said.
Insurgent violence killed eight U.S. service members in Iraq over the weekend, raising the death toll to more than 300 from a torrent of insurgent attacks in Iraq since April 28, when a new Iraqi Cabinet was approved by parliament with seven positions undecided.
At least 1,600 members of the U.S. military have now died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
On Sunday, Iraq's Shiite-dominated parliament filled five of the cabinet's seven vacancies, including four with Sunni Arab ministers. But one of the Sunnis rejected his post on the grounds of tokenism, and that tarnished the Shiite premier's bid to include the disaffected minority believed to be driving Iraq's deadly insurgency.
Monday's violence included a suicide car bomb in southern Baghdad that hit a checkpoint of two police vehicles at a busy intersection, said police Major Mousa Abdul Karim.
Police first said nine policemen and an Iraqi civilian had been killed. But when Major Karim fully examined the destruction, he reduced the death toll, saying two policemen and one civilian had been killed and six policemen and three civilians wounded.
Recently, U.S. troops appear to have stepped up their attacks on suspected insurgent strongholds, including some near the Syrian border, where foreign militants may be entering the country to attack coalition forces.
Also Sunday, coalition forces killed six insurgents and detained 54 suspects in raids targeting terror group al-Qaeda in Iraq in Qaim, a city near Obeidi, the U.S. military said.
On Monday, the U.S. military announced it had conducted several raids the previous day in and around Baghdad, detaining 13 suspected insurgents, some armed with rocket propelled grenades.
Two of the suspects were captured in a raid aimed at capturing the leader of a terror cell believed to have plotted the attempt to kill Mr. Allawi on April 20, the military said.
Mr. Allawi narrowly escaped unhurt when a suicide car bomb exploded near a police checkpoint as his convoy drove him home. At least one policeman was killed and two were wounded, police said.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was sworn in as Mr. Allawi's replacement last week, is still struggling to fill two vacant posts on his cabinet: deputy prime minister and human rights minister.
After being appointed Sunday to that latter post, Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shibli said he could not accept his appointment.
“Concentrating on sectarian identities leads to divisions in the society and state, and for that reason I respectfully decline the post,” Mr. al-Shibli said at a news conference.
When complete, the new government was to include 17 Shiite ministers, eight Kurds, six Sunnis and a Christian. Three deputy premiers also have been named — one each for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, with the fourth held open for a woman.
On Sunday, the Defence Ministry went to Saadoun al-Duleimi, a former lieutenant colonel in Saddam Hussein's General Security Directorate who left Iraq in 1984 and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until Saddam's fall in April, 2003. A moderate, he comes from a powerful Sunni tribe in Anbar province, the homeland of the insurgency.
The Oil Ministry was returned to Ibrahim al-Uloum, a Shiite who was accused of inexperience when he held the post in the first U.S.-picked Cabinet formed in the early months after the American-led invasion toppled Saddam.
The Kurdish environment minister, Narmin Othman, will act as human rights minister until a replacement is found, Mr. al-Jaafari's aides said.
Mr. al-Jaafari pledged Sunday to take “all necessary measures” to restore security and said the government could impose martial law, if necessary, to fight the insurgents.
U.S. Marine uses a metal rod to check a pothole for mines during a convoy from Camp Al Asad to Al Qaim, Iraq, on April 23, 2005. photo by Cpl. Brian A. Jaques

The U.S. military reports 75 militants dead in an offensive launched Sunday in western Iraq. The offensive was begun with U.S. air support in a desert area north of the Euphrates River in the province of Anbar. There is no word on civilian casualties, if any.

A report by a ''Chicago Tribune'' journalist embedded with U.S. forces said the offensive "was seeking to uproot a persistent insurgency in an area that American intelligence indicated has become a haven for foreign fighters flowing in from Syria."

More than 1,000 U.S. and coalition troops supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships attacked villages in and around Al Qaim, near the Syrian border. A statement by the US military said the operation was expected to last several days, and was targeting a smuggling route and hideouts for foreign rebels.

The ''American Forces Press Service'' reports: "Coalition forces also destroyed car bombs, bomb-making material and two buildings that contained large weapons caches to include hand- and rocket-propelled grenades."

The ''New York Times'' reports an estimate of insurgent casualties at over 100.  

Col. Bob Chase, the chief of operations for the Second Marine Division, has said there were "a handful" of marine casualties.  The source also reports Chase saying, "The objective is to totally disrupt the safe havens and rat lines that have allowed them to bring those materials across the border. This had been a very secure area for the insurgents."

In a statement made from an Islamist website that could not be confirmed, the Al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reportedly said, "The adorers of the cross claim to have killed 75 Muslims at Al-Qaim. Once more, they are lying, because lying is their religion," according to Forbes.