Iraqi insurgents take U.S. troops by surprise

BAGHDAD — U.S. forces on an offensive across a remote desert region in western Iraq have encountered surprisingly stiff resistance from insurgents who have established a base of operations near the Syrian border.The insurgent sanctuary has been used to launch a wave of deadly attacks in Baghdad in recent weeks, sometimes using foreign fighters coming through Syria, U.S. officers said Tuesday.
"A lot of these folks are coming across unarmed," said Col. Bob Chase, operations officer for the 2nd Marine Division. "Somewhere in these northern areas, they were given the training and weapons to carry out their acts." (Related video: Insurgents strike back)
The U.S. offensive, called Operation Matador, was launched at dawn Sunday near Qaim, south of the Euphrates River. It is among the largest military operations in Iraq since the offensive to drive insurgents from Fallujah in November.
By Tuesday, 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors, supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships, were on the north side of the Euphrates River, sweeping through insurgent safe houses and smuggling routes near the Syrian border.
As U.S. forces pressed on, insurgent gunmen kidnapped the governor of Iraq's western Anbar province, Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, and told his family he would be released when U.S. forces withdraw from Qaim. Mahalawi was seized as he drove from Qaim to the provincial capital of Ramadi, his brother, Hammad, told the Associated Press.
More than 100 suspected insurgents and three Marines have been killed in fierce clashes along the banks of the Euphrates since the offensive was launched, according to U.S. Central Command.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have struggled to better patrol the 350-mile Syrian border. But the "tyranny of distance and mass" makes it difficult to seal off from illegal crossers, who use centuries-old smuggling routes, Chase said.
A brigade-sized Iraqi force (1,500-3,500 troops) currently training in Fallujah and Ramadi will soon be ready to man border posts and block the flow of foreign fighters, he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari plans to address the issue at meetings with Syrian officials in the coming weeks, his spokesman, Laith Kubba, said. "We don't think (smuggling) is done with the Syrian government's approval, but more is needed to be done to make sure there is effective control there," Kubba said. "We take it very seriously, and we expect the Syrian government to take it seriously."
U.S. officers believe militants in strongholds in the western desert are responsible for attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Bombings in Baghdad have increased in recent weeks. More than 300 people have been killed by car bombs and other attacks since the Iraqi government was named two weeks ago.
On Tuesday, two more suicide car bombs detonated in the capital. Timed two hours apart, the blasts killed seven civilians and wounded 26, sending billows of black smoke through city streets, said Muhammed Al-Nuami, an Interior Ministry official.
The offensive near Qaim encountered resistance shortly after kicking off. Intelligence had suggested that insurgents were hiding on the north side of the Euphrates River, Chase said. But as Army engineers assembled a pontoon bridge near the town of Obeidi, waiting Marines came under mortar fire from the south side of the river, Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a Marines spokesman, said in an e-mail.
The Marines, supported by F/A-18 and Air Force F-15E fighter jets, turned and fought toward Obeidi, Chase said.
Insurgents also launched a counterattack near a Marines outpost in Qaim on Monday, attacking a convoy with small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and two suicide car bombers, according to a military statement.
One car bomb damaged an armored Humvee, the other was destroyed by a tank. No Marines were killed and two car bombers died in the attack, the statement said. Ten insurgents surrendered.
Tuesday, with the pontoon bridge assembled, U.S. troops moved west into the desert, unearthing enemy propaganda, weapon caches and some cars rigged for suicide attack, Chase said.
Since Sunday, Marines had detained 54 suspected insurgents, though that number dwindled to 16-25 after initial interrogations, Chase said. The insurgents were a mix of foreign fighters and Iraqis.
At a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said there was a reported sighting of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the United States' most-wanted man in Iraq, in the area of the current battle.
"It would be a welcome event to come across him or his body ... in that region," Conway said. "But that's not the purpose of the operation."
During the fighting, insurgents attacked in groups as large as 50 people, Chase said. It is unusual to see enemy formations of that size in Iraq, where militants typically attack using remotely detonated roadside bombs or suicide car bombs. But Chase said the insurgent attacks were not well-coordinated or tactically sophisticated.
The offensive carried echoes of the Fallujah operation, where Marines and soldiers also encountered formations of militants in well-defended positions.
U.S. officials said the offensive there led to a subsequent decline in attacks across Iraq because the city had become a support base for militants. The offensive in Fallujah had "broken the back of the insurgency," Marine Lt. Gen John Sattler said in November.
But insurgents were apparently able to re-establish a base of operations in the west, highlighting the difficulty of stamping out elusive militants.
"We've had a succession of these operations, and it is questionable how much significance they actually have," said Vance Serchuk, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
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