BAGHDAD, 8 October 2005 — US soldiers killed at least 29 guerrillas in western Iraq in its drive against insurgents, the military said yesterday.
In all, the military said, it had killed more than 50 Al-Qaeda fighters in the six days of an offensive — Operation Iron Fist — which ended yesterday on the Syrian border at Siida.
A second push against guerrillas in the Euphrates Valley, a key transit route from Syria to Baghdad, continued. Residents reported a fourth day of clashes around Haditha, where Marines said they had found readymade improvised bombs inside a mosque.
Military officials also said six more Marines had died in attacks by such bombs planted on roads — raising the US death toll since the 2003 invasion of Iraq to at least 1,948.
Iraq is struggling through a stepped-up campaign of insurgent bombings, suicide attacks and kidnappings before a vote on a new constitution in a week’s time.
The Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and an election for a new Parliament in December have fired tensions between the Shiite majority and the Sunni Arab minority which dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein but now fears political eclipse.
Many Sunni leaders share the goals of some insurgents — ending US occupation and curbing the power of Shiite majority rule. One prominent Sunni yesterday said US forces and the militants should agree a cease-fire during Ramadan, which started this week, as a prelude to direct talks.
“The fighting should stop,” Saleh Al-Mutlak, who represents the National Dialogue movement, told Reuters. “We have fought for two-and-a-half years and the problem is it doesn’t work,” he said in an interview.
Mutlak’s comments came as US officials said the campaign near the Syrian border in western Iraq was scoring successes with about 1,000 troops fighting to shut what they say is a key route for arms and foreign extremist fighters into the country.
At least 20 militants were killed on Wednesday when US aircraft bombed a hotel that militants had commandeered in the town of Qusayba, while nine other fighters died in other exchanges with US forces, the military said.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Johnson said that around Siida his forces faced mostly local people, not foreigners.
Permanent posts had been set up in the town, unlike after previous such offensives this year when guerrillas were able to move back into towns after US forces pulled out.
The military said two Marines died when a roadside bomb exploded near Qaim and four more were killed by a car bomb near the central city of Fallujah, a stronghold of Sunni Arab opposition to the US-backed Baghdad government.
Iraq’s government is now distributing copies of the new constitution which both Washington and Baghdad see as key to democratic transition.
But many Sunnis remain fiercely opposed, and some clerics used Friday prayers to urge a “no” vote.
The death toll in Iraq’s sectarian violence rose as police said 22 bodies were discovered in Wasit province near the Iranian border, some of the victims apparently from Baghdad.
