BAGHDAD, 12 June 2005 — US forces launched airstrikes on Iraqi insurgents near the Syrian border in the western province of Al-Anbar yesterday, killing about 40, a military statement said. US Marines backed by jet fighters and helicopter gunships launched the attack on several large groups of heavily armed insurgents who had set up checkpoints and were stopping civilian traffic near Karabila. No Marines were hurt in the assault, it said.

“The seven precision-guided airstrikes began at 11:40 a.m., and are estimated to have killed approximately 40 insurgents. There have been no Marine casualties,” a US military statement said.

Earlier in the day, according to reports, at least 43 people, including three US servicemen, were killed in 24 hours as a spate of bomb attacks shattered Baghdad’s relative calm since US and Iraqi forces launched a sweep for insurgents three weeks ago. In the deadliest attack yesterday, police said 11 Iraqi construction workers were killed when gunmen attacked their minibus in an area south of Baghdad dubbed the Triangle of Death for its insurgent violence.

Another 10 people died when a blast tore through Baghdad’s mainly Shiite Shula district late Friday, shortly before a nighttime curfew came into effect. An eight-months pregnant woman, her unborn child and husband were among the dead.

Coalition troop losses continued to mount, with one US soldier killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad yesterday and two Marines dead in a similar attack west of the capital Friday, the military said.

The deaths brought to 12 the number of US servicemen killed in Iraq since Tuesday and to 1,684 the overall toll since the March 2003 invasion, according to AFP tallies based on Pentagon figures.

In the countryside just to the south, dubbed the Triangle of Death for its insurgent violence, 11 Iraqi construction workers were killed when gunmen attacked their minibus, police said. Ten people died when a blast tore through Baghdad’s mainly Shiite Shula district, shortly before a nighttime curfew came into effect and as US and Iraqi officials warned against complacency despite counterinsurgency successes.

An eight-months pregnant woman, her unborn child and husband were among the dead. In the second blast, three Wolf Brigade commandos were killed when a suicide bomber disguised as a commando walked into their central Baghdad barracks. And in the latest attack, four Iraqis were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up an empty fuel tanker near the Slovak Embassy in the capital’s central Jadriyah neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said. The embassy could not be reached for comment.

Interior Minister Baqer Jabr Solagh told journalists that eight people had been detained in connection with the Shula blast. He said the commando strike had been carried out by a former brigade member and that the force’s chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Al-Quraishi was the target. “The terrorists will try to penetrate the security cordon that we have erected around Baghdad and they succeeded in doing that at a late hour on Friday night in Shula,” he said.

A doctor said his hospital had received 21 wounded commandos following the strike against the vanguard of those trying to bring peace to the capital. A patriotic song regularly broadcast on Iraqi television says that members of the fearless brigade “disarm bombs with their teeth”.

The commando unit had come to the capital from the main northern city of Mosul as part of Operation Lightning, a major offensive launched amid fanfare in May and reportedly involving 40,000 Iraqis forces.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s three autonomous Kurdish provinces were preparing yesterday for the swearing-in of Massoud Barzani as the region’s president, with his former rival Jalal Talabani already national president. Ahead of today’s ceremony, a festive atmosphere reigned on Arbil’s streets which were bedecked with the green, white and red flags of Kurdistan, emblazoned with a yellow sun.

The ceremony for Barzani, son of the father of Kurdish nationalism Mulla Mustafa Barzani, will be attended by dignitaries from home and abroad. “This ceremony marks the end of a long struggle for Kurdish rights,” senior PUK member Kousrat Rassoul said after a Thursday meeting between Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party and Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The two Kurdish parties are determined to give the day a flavor of unity, despite their previous acrimony.