BAGHDAD, Iraq – About 5,000 U.S. Marines, British troops and Iraqi forces launched a new offensive Tuesday aimed at clearing a swath of insurgent hotbeds across a cluster of dusty small towns south of Baghdad.
The series of raids and house searches was the third large-scale military operation this month aimed at suppressing Iraq’s Sunni Muslim insurgency ahead of elections set for Jan. 30.
Car bombings, rocket attacks and ambushes have surged in recent weeks – likely in part because guerrillas slipped out of the militant stronghold of Fallujah, according to commanders.
Despite the offensives, violence continued. Masked gunmen shot to death Sunni cleric Sheik Ghalib Ali al-Zuhairi on Tuesday in the second such attack against a member of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, which has called for a boycott of the national elections.
The joint military operation kicked off with early morning raids in the town of Jabella, 50 miles south of Baghdad, as Iraqi and American troops, backed by jets and helicopters, swarmed into the region known as the “triangle of death.”
At least 32 suspected insurgents were captured in the morning’s raids, the U.S. military said. In other joint raids conducted in Iskandariyah and Latifiyah, another 45 suspected terrorists were arrested, said Iraqi police Capt. Hadi Hatif.
Britain’s 1st Battalion of the Black Watch Regiment, which was brought to the area from the southern city of Basra to aid U.S. forces, was also involved in closing off militant escape routes between Baghdad, Babil province to the south and Anbar province to the west.
“We believe some fighters from Fallujah skirted away and came down to our area to, among other reasons, take a little bit of pressure off of Fallujah,” said Capt. David Nevers, a spokesman for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Another reason for the increase in attacks might also be that Iraqi soldiers and Marines stepped up house-to-house searches and vehicle checkpoints in the area for the last three months, detaining nearly 250 insurgents, he said.
“For the last couple months, we’ve gone into areas that had formerly not seen a lot of presence … We went in and stirred up a few hornets’ nests,” Nevers said.
The assault follows the massive offensive against Fallujah, in which at least 54 U.S. troops were killed and 425 wounded.
Since the Fallujah offensive began Nov. 8, about 850 U.S. servicemembers have been wounded throughout Iraq, bringing the total for the entire war to more than 9,000, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Associated Press
U.S. Army soldiers search for insurgents Monday in Mosul, Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been working together to quell an uprising in the city.
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