U.S. troops press offensive as Baghdad diner bombed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-20 09:13

U.S. and Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. and British aircraft, hunted and killed foreign fighters in the town of Karabila near the Syrian border on Sunday, prowling house to house in search of guerrilla bases.

In Baghdad, a suicide bombing claimed by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group killed at least 23 people, many of them police and security guards eating lunch at a restaurant outside the Green Zone government compound.

It was the bloodiest attack in the capital since a major crackdown on insurgent activity began in Baghdad a month ago.

A U.S. Marine kicks a gate to search a house in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 19, 2005. About 1,000 U.S. Marines are participating in Operation Spear near Iraqi-Syrian border town.[AP]

Karabila, nearly deserted but once home to 60,000 people, and other areas around the city of Qaim, are the focus of Operation Spear, one of two offensives launched in three days in the western desert against Sunni Arab rebels fighting the U.S. presence and the new, Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Along with Operation Dagger, closer to the capital near Tharthar lake, the high-profile assaults took place as President Bush, absorbing new criticism of his strategy in Iraq, asked Americans to show patience over what he called a "central front in the war on terror."

A U.S. Marine runs through the front gate of a house as the dust settles from explosives used to blow the lock open in Karabilah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 19, 2005. [AP]

A hundred or so people waving white flags walked out from northern areas of Karabila at dawn on Sunday after loudspeaker warnings that marines were about to seize the district. Dust storms later held up the military's progress, officers said.

Troops found what they called a car bomb factory, Iraqi hostages and a torture house for captives on Saturday.

Reporters invited to accompany the U.S. forces reported little sign of civilian life.

"Nobody's been home. We've run into probably four families since we got here," Captain Chris Toland said as his company paused on Sunday in a house close to a mosque where marines killed three gunmen the day before.

Outside lay the scattered remains of one of the fighters; after he died, troops set off grenades he had strapped to his body.

A report by marine spokesman Captain Jeff Pool said about 50 insurgents had been killed, and 10 civilians whose homes guerrillas had fired from were wounded. A marine was shot dead on Saturday in Karabila, the military said in a statement.

Iraqi troops found nine passports along with a cache of grenades. The documents belonged to Saudis, Sudanese and North Africans, including a Libyan in whose passport was a boarding pass indicating he flew to Damascus from Tripoli two weeks ago.

SUNNI ACCUSATION

A leading organization for Iraq's Sunni Arabs, the minority once dominant under Saddam Hussein, accused U.S. forces of killing women and children and destroying homes, schools and other civilian buildings around Karabila and Qaim.

"Operation Spear ... will break on the rock of Iraqi solidarity," the Muslim Clerics Association said in a statement reflecting anger at U.S. military tactics.

The chief doctor at the area's main hospital in Qaim, Hamdi al-Alusi, said he had seen 10 bodies and treated 17 wounded. Most of those hurt were women and children, he said.

Remaining residents in Qaim said some families had left before the fighting to live in tents in the desert.

U.S. commanders say Zarqawi may be active in the Euphrates River valley cutting through the western desert from the Qaim area toward Baghdad. Foreigners seem to be responsible for some of the deadliest attacks such as suicide car bombings despite forming only a small part of rebel forces, they say.

SUICIDE BOMBING

In Baghdad, the one-room, street-front restaurant was devastated with scarcely a stick of blood-spattered furniture intact. Human remains lay on the sidewalk. "Ibn Zanbour," or "Son of the Wasp," was a lively and well-known halt on a strip of grill and kebab establishments along a shaded sidewalk.

The U.S. military command blames Zarqawi for a surge in violence since the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated government took office in April. Since then more than 1,000 Iraqis and some 120 U.S. troops have been killed in rebel attacks.

At least 1,718 U.S. troops have died in 27 months in Iraq.

Major General William Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, said on Saturday a month-long sweep known as Operation Lightning had halved the number of car bombings in the capital.

But he added: "Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point."

A suicide car bomb attack on a police convoy in Baghdad killed five people and wounded 22, police sources said.

Three people died and seven were wounded when gunmen opened fire at a market in Iskandariya, just south of the capital.

Near Tikrit, Saddam's home town north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded nine on Sunday when he drove his car at an army patrol, police said.

In Mosul, a civilian was killed and eight were wounded when two mortar rounds fell close to the city hall, police said.