BAGHDAD, Aug 2: Seven US Marines have been killed in fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province, a guerilla heartland that keeps challenging US and Iraqi troops despite repeated crackdowns. Their deaths push the number of US troops to have died since the start of the invasion in March 2003 to above 1,800.
Pacifying Anbar is a top priority for US and Iraqi troops who say the rest of the country cannot be stabilized unless guerillas are rooted out of the region. Six of the Marines were killed on Monday near Haditha, a town on the Euphrates river 200kms northwest of Baghdad, US military spokesman Lt Col Steve Boylan said.
The seventh was also killed on Monday, by a car bomb blast in the town of Hit, 70kms southeast of Haditha, the Marines said in a statement. Al Qaeda in Iraq, a group allied to Al Qaeda network, claimed responsibility for the death of the Marine in Hit in a Web statement.
Aware that Iraq’s security forces are incapable of fighting guerillas on their own, Iraqi leaders hope to draw more Sunnis into politics in a bid to tame the country. While they have succeeded with some moderate Sunnis, drawing up a constitution and preparing for elections has little appeal for hardcore fighters in Anbar and other hotspots.
In the past month, nearly 60 US soldiers have died, including five who were killed in two roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad at the weekend. Iraqi forces have suffered far worse casualties. Hundreds have been killed in suicide attacks, assassinations and ambushes.
US and Iraqi officials say American troops can only pull out once local forces can take over security. But that is not expected any time soon. Guerillas have mounted frequent attacks in the area around Haditha. US forces have launched at least two major offensives to try to quell the resistance in the region.
26 KILLED: Twenty-six people were killed in attacks across the country. A powerful blast shook central Baghdad when a suicide car bomber blew himself up close to a US military convoy, killing four people and wounding 23 others, including four women.
“We have received four bodies and 23 other people who are wounded from the car bomb,” said a doctor at a hospital.
One US humvee was set ablaze and 14 other vehicles were damaged by the blast.
“We were 20 metres away when the car bomb went off and me and my team carried 15 wounded civilians,” said policeman Hussein al Musawi, his shirt soaked with blood.
In separate attacks, gunmen opened fire on a group of people leaving a city hospital where they had been to see the body of a religious figure, murdered late on Monday. Five people were killed in the attack.
Police Colonel Mizher Hamad Yussef died in a drive-by shooting, and two employees of the finance ministry were shot dead on their way to work in Baghdad on Tuesday.
In another incident, a civilian was killed and five wounded, four of them policemen, when a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in the centre of Baquba, 60kms northeast of Baghdad.
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed when a bomb hidden inside a dead dog hit an army patrol in the northeastern Balad town. Five soldiers were also wounded.
Three other people working at a US base in the northern town of Baiji were killed when the bus they were travelling in was ambushed by gunmen, while a construction worker was shot dead, also in Baiji.
An engineer was gunned down in Dhuluiyah, while a man was killed in a Baghdad bookshop when a bomb reportedly hidden in a suitcase blew up.
The body of an Iraqi soldier was found in Samarra, while that of a policeman was found in Al Dawr.—Reuters/AFP
