US troops launch fresh offensive in Iraq
Foreign Desk Report

BAGHDAD—US Marines launched their biggest offensive this year against al Qaeda guerrillas in western Iraq when the military said 2,500 troops moved on Tuesday against militants around Haditha.
Two months after a previous push against Islamist fighters ended with al Qaeda still in control of several areas, Operation River Gate aims to stop the group operating in Haditha and two nearby towns, Haqlaniya and Barwana, a military statement said.
The operation, launched at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and 10 days before a constitutional referendum, was also to “free the local citizens from the terrorists’ campaign of murder and intimidation,” it said.
The United Nations intervened to say it expected a review of rules on Iraq’s October 15 referendum, having criticized a decision that made it harder to block the constitution. The U.N. move followed a decision on Sunday by the Shi’ite and Kurdish-dominated parliament to raise the hurdle for a veto on the charter by redefining the word “voter” in a single phrase in the interim rules. To ensure the “No” camp was fairly treated, a U.N. official said the world body sought a review.
In the Sunni Arab west of Iraq there is widespread discontent with the U.S. backed, Shi’ite-led government and with the proposed constitution. But local people also voice fear and anger at foreign-inspired Islamists who have set up Taliban-style religious rule in Haditha and other towns.
“The operation started with bombing in the city and there was fighting overnight,” one Haditha resident said by telephone, adding that a bridge linking Haditha and Berwana was destroyed. The U.S. military said an F-16 jet bombed the bridge.
“It’s quiet now but they are going through the city arresting people. There is a curfew and snipers are posted on rooftops,” he added, saying fighter jets and helicopters were also on patrol. In Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian were killed and six security men wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded after entering the city’s heavily fortified government zone.
Elsewhere, Iraqi and U.S. forces fought a battle in broad daylight with more than 40 guerrillas, the U.S. military said, adding that “more than three dozen terrorists were ... killed, wounded ... or detained.” It said the fighting was in “south Baghdad” but local police said it was south of the capital.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed in bomb attacks near Haqlaniya on Monday, the military said. A fourth, a Marine killed on the Syrian border, took the death toll among American forces in Iraq to at least 1,939 since they invaded in 2003.
“The U.S. Iraqi forces distributed leaflets with phone numbers asking people to call if they want to inform on the insurgents,” said another resident of Haditha. During Operation Sword in early August, about 1,000 U.S. troops fought militants in the city and its neighboring towns, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad. Close to the town, on August 3, U.S. ground forces suffered their heaviest loss in a single attack; 14 died when an armored vehicle hit a land mine.
Within days, however, residents and reporters said Islamist militants were back in control in the town, dispensing summary justice including public executions and banning music and Western-style dress in a manner similar to the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan who first fostered the al Qaeda movement.
U.S. commanders acknowledge that militants have been able to melt away into the countryside during U.S. offensives, only to return when the American forces return to their bases. Separately, about 1,000 troops have been fighting Qaeda militants near Qaim on the Syrian border, a further 120 km (75 miles) to the west, since Saturday in Operation Iron Fist.
The bulk of insurgents, probably in the tens of thousands, are Iraqis. Some 1,000 foreign militants may be active in the country, the Iraqi interior minister said this week. Operations in the Euphrates valley, leading from Syria toward Baghdad, have in the past been aimed at disrupting the flow of suicide bomb volunteers to the capital. Iraqi and U.S. officials have warned of an upsurge of such attacks ahead of the referendum and during the holy month of Ramadan.
Anxious to stem violence and ease their military commitment in Iraq, U.S. officials have been pressing the Shi’ite majority to offer concessions to Sunnis who have seen their power in the country collapse with the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Tensions among the secular Kurds and Shi’ite Islamists who run the coalition government are simmering as the various blocs maneuver for the politics that will come after the referendum, in an election to a full-blown four-year parliament in December. One leading Shi’ite demanded that President Jalal Talabani come to parliament to account for his criticisms of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shi’ite Islamist.
It is unclear whether the Islamists can hold their own broad alliance together at the election in the face of challenges from other Islamist groups and secular Shi’ites, some of whom could form coalitions with Kurds and Sunnis that might win a majority.