Last year, insurgents sharply increased their
attacks against U.S. and coalition forces at the start of the holy month.
One soldier was killed in an explosion about 4:50 a.m. Wednesday in western
Baghdad, the U.S. command said. The three others died in a roadside attack at
about 10 p.m. Tuesday in eastern Baghdad, a separate military statement said.
The names of the soldiers were withheld pending notification of their families.
It wasn't immediately clear if the soldiers were part of Tuesday's offensive,
which stretched from Baghdad to the Syrian border.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there are concerns
within the U.S. government about a possible rise in insurgent violence around
Ramadan, because of an upswing last year — when bombings and rocket attacks
accelerated significantly in Baghdad and other areas at the beginning of the
holy month.
Some militants believe they would win a special place in paradise by
sacrificing their lives in a jihad, or holy war, during Ramadan, when Muslims
say their sacred book the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Clashes broke out in a string of militant strongholds from Fallujah, 40 miles
west of Baghdad, northward along the Euphrates Valley to the Syrian border town
of Qaim — all major conflict areas. Some of the sharpest exchanges took place in
Hit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Insurgents attacked an Iraqi National Guard outpost east of Qaim Tuesday, the
U.S. military said. The local hospital reported 15 to 20 people were killed.
Seventy miles west of Baghdad, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers and
Marines raided seven mosques in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi,
arresting a locally prominent member of a clerical association and three other
people. They also seized bomb-making materials and "insurgent propaganda" in the
mosques, U.S. officials said.
In Baghdad, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical group
suspected of links to the insurgency, condemned the mosque raids as an example
of alleged American hostility toward Islam.
"I think there is a religious ideology that drives the American troops," said
the association's official spokesman, Mohammed Bashar al-Faydhi. "President Bush
has said at the beginning of the war that this is a `crusade,'" he said,
referring to the Christian attacks on Muslims in the Middle Ages.
However, the raids followed a surge in insurgent attacks in Ramadi, and the
U.S. command accused the militants of violating the sanctity of the mosques by
using them for military purposes. Marine spokesman Maj. Francis Piccoli said
U.S. troops provided backup for the Iraqi soldiers but did not enter the
mosques.
In Fallujah, the focal point for Sunni resistance, residents reported
explosions and clashes on the eastern edge of the city Tuesday afternoon. At
least five people were killed and four wounded in the blasts, according to
Fallujah General Hospital. The victims were reportedly traveling in a truck and
two cars on a highway outside the city when they came under fire.
The renewed activity around Fallujah followed a pair of pre-dawn airstrikes,
which the U.S. command said targeted hideouts and meeting places of the feared
Tawhid and Jihad, the terrorist group responsible for numerous kidnappings and
beheadings of foreign hostages.
The airstrikes were the first in four days and occurred as Iraqi officials
were in talks with city representatives to restore government control, which
disintegrated after the Marines ended a three-week siege in late April.
Since then the city has fallen under the control of hardline Islamist clerics
and their armed followers, who defended Fallujah against the Marines. Both sides
have said they were close to an agreement but that several details remain
unresolved, including how Iraqi forces would enter the city.
