About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters and tanks, swept into a village near the Syrian border Saturday in a new offensive aimed at rooting out al Qaeda militants and stemming violence that has shaken Iraq ahead of a crucial vote on a new constitution.
Helicopters firing missiles struck cars, sending palls of smoke into the sky as the force moved into Sadah, residents contacted by The Associated Press said. In the evening, Marines clashed in the streets with insurgents, and a Humvee was seen burning, they said.
Eight militants were killed in the day's fighting, the military said in a statement. In one clash, insurgents pulled up in vehicles, got out and opened fire on U.S. troops, and the subsequent battle left four gunmen dead. The military said there were no U.S. casualties in the assault's first day.
The U.S. military said al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most fearsome militant group behind a wave of suicide bombings, had taken control of Sadah and that foreign fighters were using it as a way station as they enter from Syria to join the insurgency.
The assault was the fourth large U.S. offensive in the border area since May. But the militants who run rampant in large parts of western Iraq have proven difficult to put down, moving back in to towns after the assaults are over and the bulk of troops withdraw.
Al Qaeda and other Sunni-led insurgents have waged a stepped-up campaign of violence, killing at least 205 people this week in an attempt to wreck the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution, a vital step in Iraq's political process. Iraq's Sunni Arab minority opposes the draft charter, fearing it will split Iraq and consecrate Shiite and Kurdish domination.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has declared "all-out war" on Shiites, and since a Shiite-majority government took power in Iraq on April 28, suicide bombers have killed at least 1,345 people, according to an Associated Press count.
In other developments:
Two US soldiers were killed by explosions while on patrols Saturday — one in Baghdad and another in Beiji, 155 miles north of the capital, the military said. Fifteen U.S. service members have been killed this week — and at least 1,935 have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.In Baghdad, insurgents kidnapped the brother of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh, the Shiite official who heads police forces, and the son of another top ministry official was kidnapped north of the capital, ministry spokesman Maj. Felah al-Mohammedawi said.A U.S. soldier and an Afghan soldier have been killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. Another U.S. soldier and two other Afghan National Army soldiers were also wounded in the small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade attack, which occurred Friday during combat operations north of the city of Kandahar, the military said.A roadside bomb exploded on a bridge in Basra on Saturday, hitting a Danish patrol and wounding three of its soldiers, police said. The attack occurred on Al-Asafyaa Bridge in the Al-Karma section of Basra, a city in southern Iraq, shortly after noon, said police Capt. Mushtaq Kadim.The U.S. military released about 500 Iraqi detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison out the outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday, completing its plan to free a total of more than 1,000 this week in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The release, made at the request of Iraq's government, also appeared to be part of its effort to persuade Iraqis to vote in the Oct. 15 national referendum, especially the country's minority Sunnis. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group, condemned the Balad and Hillah attacks this week that killed 110 people, saying "such sinful acts only serve the schemes of the occupiers" by widening the gap between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites. The party urged Iraqis "to stop the violence and solve their problems by words, not weapons."Gunmen shot and killed Iraqi army Lt. Col. Hatam Baani Mohammed Al-Rubaiee while as he traveling to work in Baghdad, said police Maj. Falah Al-Mohammadawi.CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports from Baghdad that the . If U.S. forces pulled out tomorrow, there wouldn't be any Iraqi battalions that could fight alone and that means everything from logistics to signals, to heavy weapons to close air support.