IRAQ: US and Iraqi troops hunted down Sunni Arab insurgents, who fought back with rifles and makeshift bombs, on the second day of an offensive in a border town that aims to quell rebellion in western Iraq before elections next month.
Operation "Steel Curtain", the biggest operation in the mainly Sunni desert province of Anbar in a year, met sporadic resistance yesterday, said military officials, who would not confirm a report that dozens of insurgents had been killed.
Also yesterday, north of Baghdad, masked gunmen opened fire on a minivan, killing 13 people, including a 12-day-old baby. A six-year-old boy and his 18-year-old cousin were the only survivors.
In Mahaweel, 75km (47 miles) south of the capital, an Iraqi policeman was killed and three others were wounded by a roadside bomb, while in Balad to the north, two people were killed and another kidnapped by gunmen, police said.
The violence raised fears of sectarian tensions driving the campaign for the December 15th election, when minority Sunni Arabs are expected to vote in large numbers for the first time.
Some 2,500 US troops and 1,000 local Iraqis, backed by tanks and air strikes, edged through mostly deserted streets in Qusayba in western Iraq, kicking down the doors of empty houses in their methodical search for foreign al-Qaeda fighters.
Brig Gen Donald Alston said the forces had been met with mainly rifle fire and "improvised explosive devices", the major killer of Americans in Iraq. There had been no deaths among US and Iraqi troops or civilians, he said. "As it stands right now we are not meeting what I would term stiff resistance," he told a news conference in Baghdad.
Black-clad insurgents armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles fired down narrow lanes and from windows at marines and Iraqi troops on foot and in armoured vehicles, according to a New York Times reporter with the marines in Qusayba.
Only a few blocks of the dusty town had been secured at the end of the operation's first day on Saturday, the paper said.
Fighter jets dropped 227kg (500lb) bombs during nine air strikes, while Lieut Col Dale Alford told CNN that some insurgents were fighting from schools and mosques. Military officials were quoted as saying "dozens" of fighters were killed and 50 detained.
Several US offensives this year in the Euphrates valley, running from the border towards the capital, have been aimed at stemming the flow of Islamist militants into Iraq.
Local people have complained that al-Qaeda-linked militants have returned to their towns once the Americans have withdrawn. US commanders hope local troops can now hold their own as part of a strategy to begin withdrawing US forces next year.
In Baghdad, Sunni politician Fakhri al-Qaisi was hit by five bullets as he drove alone on Saturday. He underwent surgery to remove a bullet from his chest.
His National Dialogue Council is part of a major Sunni bloc contesting the election after boycotting a first post-Saddam Hussein vote in January.
Mr al-Qaisi's group has accused the Shia- and Kurdish-led government and its US backers of killing civilians in operations such as the one in western Iraq.