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U.S. launches major offensive in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-05 15:56
The American military launched a major offensive near
the Syrian border on Saturday aimed at destroying al-Qaida in Iraq's ability to
smuggle in foreign fighters, money and equipment. The feared insurgent group
warned foreign diplomats to flee Iraq after announcing it would kill two
kidnapped Moroccans.
An Iraqi man tends to his sheep while a U.S.
military helicopter circles overhead during a U.S. Army raid by the 101st
Airborne Division at a nearby house, in a Shiite village near Balad, 80
kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Nov. 4, 2005.
[AP] |
In separate attacks in other areas of Iraq north of Baghdad, insurgents
killed 11 Iraqi security troops and two American soldiers.
The offensive of about 2,500 Marines, soldiers and sailors in the town of
Husaybah will remove insurgents from the western province of Anbar ahead of
Iraq's parliamentary election on Dec. 15, the military said. An unspecified
number of Iraqi forces were also taking part.
The offensive is part of a larger o0ngoing U.S. military operation designed
to deny al-Qaida in Iraq the ability to operate in the Euphrates River valley,
which stretches through Anbar province, and to establish a joint permanent
security presence along the Syrian border.
"Operation Steel Curtain marks the first large-scale
employment of multiple battalion-sized units of Iraqi army forces in combined
operations with coalition forces in the last year," the military said.
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