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US marines launch new raid on Iraq insurgents
U.S. Marines said on Saturday they had launched a new counter-insurgency operation, the latest in a series of sweeps designed to root out militant bases in Iraq's Euphrates valley. Operation Scimitar involved about 500 U.S. troops and 100 Iraqis, making it about half the scale of Operation Sword and Operation Spear in the past three weeks. The military said the Marines had detained 22 suspected militants since the raid was launched in secret in the village of Zaidon 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Falluja on Thursday. Washington says the western Euphrates valley between the Syrian border and Baghdad is a conduit for foreign militants behind a wave of suicide bombings that worsened after the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took power in April.
During Operation Spear, they called in air strikes and left much of the border town of Karabila in ruins after battles they said killed dozens of insurgents. Operation Sword was quieter, with no heavy resistance reported. ATTACKS ON DIPLOMATS The United States and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government are also worried about a series of attacks on diplomats which appear aimed at thwarting the government's efforts to win greater recognition from cautious Muslim and Arab states. Egypt said it was cutting staff at its embassy after its mission chief, Ihab el-Sherif, was kidnapped and killed by Al Qaeda's Iraq wing. Pakistan withdrew its ambassador after his motorcade was fired on, and Bahrain's envoy was wounded by gunmen. Other Arab countries, mostly ruled by Sunnis, have yet to give their diplomats in Baghdad full ambassador status, although Iraq says Jordan and Syria will soon do so and Egypt had planned to before Sherif was killed. Baghdad and Washington have called on Arab states not to let the attacks stop them from upgrading ties. "The brutal slaying of this dedicated diplomat, working to better the lives of the Iraqi people, further underscores the desperate and evil agenda of terrorists working to undermine progress toward democracy around the world," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement. Among incidents reported on Saturday, 11 Iraqis -- including two soldiers and a police officer -- were shot dead throughout the northern flashpoint city of Mosul in separate attacks on Friday, hospital officials said. In one attack, four civilians traveling from Baghdad were dragged out of their car and shot in the south of the city. A family of four were shot dead on Saturday in the northern town of Baiji when gunmen stormed their house at dawn and killed a husband, wife and their children, five and two years old, police Major Ali al-Qeysi said. Residents said the man may have worked for a foreign company. Police killed three insurgents driving a car packed with explosives in western Baghdad's Ghazaliya district on Thursday evening, a U.S military statement said. The car was stopped at a routine police checkpoint but attempted to escape before police shot dead the occupants.
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