Iraq Militants Strike Back
U.S. forces hunting down followers of Iraq's most wanted terrorist pushed into a lawless region north of the Euphrates River near the Syrian border Tuesday after meeting unexpected resistance from insurgents hidden in remote desert outposts along the waterway's southern banks.
Hitting back, gunmen kidnapped the provincial governor and told his family he would be released when U.S. forces withdraw from Qaim, 200 miles west of Baghdad, where the offensive was launched late Saturday, his relatives said. Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized as he drove from Qaim to the provincial capital of Ramadi, his brother, Hammad, told The Associated Press.
Marines fought house-to-house Monday against dozens of well-armed insurgents firing at them from balconies, rooftops and sandbagged bunkers in nearby Obeidi and surrounding villages, the Los Angeles Times reported.
As many as 100 militants have been killed so far in Operation Matador, one of the largest American offensives in Iraq in six months, the military said. At least three U.S. Marines have been killed in the offensive, which involves more than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers backed by helicopter gunships and fighter jets.
A Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with U.S. forces said 20 American troops also were wounded, but the U.S. military could not immediately confirm that.
The offensive comes amid a surge of militant attacks across Iraq, often targeting security forces and civilians, since the new government was announced April 28.
In other recent developments:
U.S. Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said soldiers built a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates River on Monday and Marines had pushed into the northern Jazirah Desert, a largely unpatrolled area near the Syrian border.
"This is an area which we believe has been pretty heavy with foreign insurgents from many different areas — Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine," Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, told The Associated Press late Monday. "That's a fairly porous area of the border because of the terrain. It is very difficult."
Residents in the area reported fighting Tuesday in Obeidi, 185 miles west of Baghdad, and the two nearby towns of Rommana and Karabilah. Speaking by telephone, they said frightened residents were fleeing the Qaim area.
"It's truly horrific, there are snipers everywhere, rockets, no food, no electricity," Abu Omar al-Ani, a father of three, said from Qaim on Monday night. "Today five rockets fell in front of my house ... we are mentally exhausted."
Pool said insurgents had tried to launch a counterattack Monday night seven 4.5 miles from U.S. Camp Gannon in Qaim. They attacked a Marine convoy with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and two suicide car bombers, Pool said in a statement.
One bomb damaged an armored Humvee, and a suicide car bomber was destroyed by a U.S. Marine tank, but no Marines were killed and 10 insurgents surrendered, Pool said.
Marine commanders expressed surprise at the extent of resistance Monday in Obeidi and surrounding villages on the southern side of the Euphrates, telling the Chicago Tribune their intelligence had indicated the insurgency had massed on the other side of the waterway.
The Los Angeles Times reporter said insurgents had sandbag bunkers piled in front of some homes and fighters strategically positioned on rooftops and balconies.
In the towns of Sabah, Obeidi and Karabilah, the reporter said, insurgents fired mortar rounds at U.S. Marine convoys along the Euphrates' southern edge.
At one point, the paper said, a Marine walked into a house and an insurgent hiding in the basement fired through a floor grate, killing him. Another Marine who was retrieving a wounded comrade inside a house suffered shrapnel wounds when an insurgent threw a grenade through a window, the Times said.
The report said insurgents were using boats to transport weapons from one side of the Euphrates River to another, that some militants wore body armor. It said one Marine suffered a broken back and at least two were wounded Sunday when a land mine hit their tank.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighters dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs and fired 510 20-millimeter cannon rounds Sunday against insurgents around Qaim and that Marine F/A-18 fighters fired 319 20-millimeter cannon rounds.
The paper quoted U.S. Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the 2nd Marine Division, as saying: "The enemy honestly felt that they had a sense of security up there. It had been a safe haven, and a lot of folks up there were former Baathists," referring to Saddam Hussein's former ruling party.
"Now it is no longer a safe haven, and it will never be a safe haven again," said Chase. He was quoted as saying insurgents have had a network of illegal "rat lines" of men and materials moving from Syria into Iraq that had to be stopped.