BAGHDAD, 10 July 2005 — Hundreds of US Marines and Iraqi soldiers have launched new raids against insurgent strongholds in a volatile Sunni province, as the head of Iraq’s karate association became the latest victim of kidnapping, officials said yesterday.
Elsewhere, a provincial official of the country’s largest Shiite party was wounded in an assassination attempt in Mosul, police said. Gunmen also fired on the convoy of a provincial governor northeast of Baghdad.
Operation Scimitar started Thursday with raids in the village of Zaidan, 30 kilometers southeast of Fallujah, the military said. So far, 22 suspected insurgents had been detained.
Fallujah, a western Anbar province city 65 kilometers west of Baghdad, was a major insurgent bastion until US forces overran the city in November.
The military said it did not announce the offensive earlier because commanders did not want to tip off insurgents that a major operation had begun. The campaign — named after a curved Asian sword — includes 500 Marines from the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team-8, stationed in Okinawa, Japan, the military said.
