Four U.S. Marines killed in Iraq

[thedrifter]

Four U.S. Marines killed in Iraq

1 hour, 28 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four U.S. Marines were killed by a roadside bomb in the western Iraqi province of Anbar on Friday, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

US rocket strike near Baghdad hospital wounds 20
04 May 2008 00:00:52 GMT
Source: Reuters
* U.S. rocket strike near Sadr City hospital wounds 20

* Iraq delegation says Iran backs crackdown on militants

* Four U.S. Marines killed in Anbar province

(Adds four U.S. Marines killed in last paragraph)

By Waleed Ibrahim and Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. military fired rockets at a target near a major hospital in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, wounding 20 people and damaging several ambulances, the head of the hospital said.

No patients were wounded at the hospital in the Sadr City stronghold of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but 20 people at the scene of the blasts had been hurt, said Dr. Wi'am al-Jawahiri, manager of al-Sadr hospital.

Jawahiri said windows at the hospital were shattered when three missiles hit what the U.S. military in Iraq called a militant "command and control" centre around 10 a.m.

"While I believe the target was not the hospital, we could have been informed before they did such a thing. At least we could have taken some precautions," Jawahiri told Reuters.

The U.S. military said precision-guided munitions were used to destroy the militant facility in Sadr City, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling Shi'ite gunmen loyal to Sadr for several weeks as part of a big government crackdown on militias.

Such weapons could either be rockets fired from launchers on the ground or helicopters.

Colonel Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the operation was "time sensitive" and targeted a "command and control" centre that was used to plan attacks against the Iraqi people as well as Iraqi and U.S. security forces.

"We take great care to prevent any collateral damage and will continue to do so. We don't target civilians and regret any casualties," O'Hara said.

Asked why a missile strike was launched so close to the hospital during the middle of the morning, he said:

"The real question should be why these criminal elements seem to always put the Iraqi people at risk by using facilities to coordinate their attacks so close to public places."

A "battle damage assessment" was being carried out, he said.

Reuters Television pictures showed a destroyed building not far from the hospital, one of two main medical facilities in the crowded Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, home to 2 million people.

Several ambulances were badly damaged, along with a number of civilian cars.

MORE CLASHES OVERNIGHT

The latest attack came after a night of more violence in Sadr City. The U.S. military said American and Iraqi forces killed 14 gunmen in battles overnight.

Hospital officials said 14 people had been killed and 25 wounded following the clashes. It was not immediately clear if the dead and wounded were gunmen or civilians.

The U.S. military has been carrying out air strikes on gunmen nearly every day in the militia bastion since fighting erupted more than a month ago.

It says militants have fired more than 700 rockets and mortars at various targets during that period, mostly at the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound.

The U.S. military blames rogue elements of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia for the rocket fire. It accuses Iran of arming, funding and training those militants, a charge Tehran denies.

A delegation from Iraq's ruling Shi'ite alliance was sent to Tehran this week to tell Iran to stop backing Shi'ite militias fighting security forces, members of the alliance have said.

The delegation returned to Baghdad on Saturday. In a brief statement on Iraq's al-Furat television, the head of the delegation, deputy parliamentary speaker Khalid al-Attiya, said Iran supported Baghdad in its fight against militants.

Attiya did not mention the U.S. accusations.

"The delegation saw a positive stance from the brothers in Iran to support the government's efforts in extending the sovereignty of the state and to fight the outlaws," Attiya said.

The U.S. military said this week that "very, very significant" amounts of Iranian weaponry had been found in the southern city of Basra and also Baghdad during an offensive against militiamen in those cities that began in late March.

U.S. military officials had planned to put on display some of the recently captured weapons but decided to let the Iraqis make their own case to Iran first.

Four U.S. Marines were killed by a roadside bomb in the western province of Anbar on Friday, the U.S. military said in a statement. (Additional reporting by Aws Qusay, Writing by Dean Yates, Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Four US marines killed in Iraq blast

by Amal Jayasinghe
1 hour, 17 minutes ago

Insurgents blew up four US marines in Iraq's Anbar province, marking one of the deadliest attacks against US troops in the former Sunni rebel bastion in months, the military said on Sunday.

In Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, at least 10 more people were killed in overnight clashes, security officials and medics said.

The marines died when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device on Friday, the US military said in a statement, without specifying the exact location of the attack.

The attack came 10 days after a similar ambush in the province in which two US marines were killed and three wounded.

Friday's attack brought to 1,290 the US military's losses in Anbar since the March 2003 invasion, according to independent website www.icasualties.org, closely trailing the 1,298 killed in the capital Baghdad.

Most of the US dead in Anbar, the biggest province in Iraq, have been due to roadside bombs.

The losses in Anbar make up nearly a third of the 4,071 US troops killed in the conflict so far.

The vast desert province that borders Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan was a key stronghold of the anti-US insurgency in the first years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Its provincial capital of Ramadi and the nearby city of Fallujah became symbols of Sunni Arab resistance to US forces in Iraq.

In one of the fiercest battles of the war so far, US forces virtually razed Fallujah to the ground in November 2004 in a devastating offensive to recapture the city from insurgents.

That month saw 137 US troops killed across Iraq -- the highest monthly figure till now -- most of them in the Fallujah battle.

According to www.icasualties.org, US losses in Anbar peaked in 2006 with 356 service pesronnel killed.

But violence in the province fell dramatically last year as Sunni Arab tribes fell out with Al-Qaeda and joined the US-led war against the jihadist network which had made Anbar one of its bastions.

The policy of recruiting former insurgents to the battle against Al-Qaeda saw US losses in Anbar fall to 161 last year, prompting its extension to other restive provinces across Iraq.

Overall US losses in Iraq last year totalled 901. That figure compares with 486 deaths in 2003, 849 in 2004, 846 in 2005 and 822 in 2006.

So far in 2008, 166 troops have been killed.

In the latest fighting in Sadr City, at least 10 people were killed in overnight crossfire between US troops and Shiite militiamen, Iraqi officials said.

Another 17 people were wounded in the violence, security officials and medical sources said.

There was no immediate word from the US military on the latest casualties in the sprawling district where US troops have been fighting running battles with Shiite militiamen since March 25.

On Saturday, the US military said it destroyed a command and control centre operated by militants in Sadr City. Witnesses said a shack had been reduced to rubble and a nearby hospital suffered serious damage.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the Sadr City fighting and followers of Sadr have accused the US military of killing civilians.

The US military charges that the militiamen have been using civilians as human shields.

In the main northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi woman freelance journalist was killed, police and the Journalists Freedom Observatory (JFO), a local media watchdog, said.

Gunmen dragged Tharwat Abdul Wahab, 30, out of a taxi and killed her in broad daylight, a police officer said without revealing his name.

Around 235 media staff have been killed in Iraq since the invasion, according to the JFO, making the country the most dangerous in the world to report from.

Most of the Iraqi journalists killed have been targeted by insurgent groups or militias angered by their coverage or ideologically opposed to their employers. Others have died in crossfire.

Ellie