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Roadside bomb kills 14 US marines in Iraq
Marines have been fighting for months in a string of towns along the Euphrates to try to seal a major infiltration route for foreign fighters slipping into Iraq from Syria. Late Wednesday, insurgents fired two mortars at Marine positions near Haditha. Moments later, U.S. warplanes could be heard mounting counterattacks, residents said. The Marines stepped up operations in May in hopes of pacifying the area so Iraqi military and civilian forces could assume effective control. However, government authority in the heavily Sunni Arab region is tenuous. U.S. officials have long complained that American forces seize Sunni areas only to have Iraqi authorities lose them again to the insurgents once American troops leave. Despite those complaints, the Bush administration is talking about handing more security responsibility to the Iraqis and drawing down forces next year. At least 1,821 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. On Wednesday, the Web site of the Ansar al-Sunnah Army posted photographs from Monday's attack on the Marine sniper team. One picture shows a bloody, battered body wearing Marine camouflage trousers. Another shows two hooded gunmen standing in front of several rifles, apparently taken from dead Marines. In a statement accompanying the photos, Ansar al-Sunnah said the insurgents lured the Marines out of their base and ambushed them. "The intention was to capture them alive, but they opened fire on the mujahedeen," the statement said. "The heroes slaughtered those who were still alive ... except for one, who begged the mujahedeen for his life. They captured him and he is in our hands." At the Pentagon, Ham said no Marines were missing and believed captured. In Brook Park, the Cleveland suburb where the battalion was based, businesses tied red, white and blue ribbons on their doors, and some had American flags hanging in the windows. A bouquet of red roses was placed at the gate of the Marine headquarters, an old brick schoolhouse. Among the six killed Monday was Cpl. Jeffrey A. Boskovitch, 25, of North Royalton, Ohio, an aspiring police officer who planned to set a wedding date with his girlfriend when he returned home this fall. A New York City police officer serving in the Army Reserve was shot and killed Tuesday by a sniper while guarding prisoners at the Camp Victory military base, outside Baghdad, city officials said Wednesday. Staff Sgt. James McNaughton, 27, was the first member of the police force to be killed in action in Iraq. In Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, an American freelance writer was found dead late Tuesday �� the first U.S. journalist slain in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. Steven Vincent of New York was shot multiple times hours after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint, police said. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded. Five gunmen in a police car abducted them as they left a currency exchange shop Tuesday evening, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said. Vincent had been in Basra for several months working on a book about the city's history. In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, he wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra. He also criticized British forces for failing to curb the infiltration. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 46 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed covering the war in Iraq since March 2003. Insurgent actions are responsible for the bulk of the deaths. The Vienna, Austria-based media watchdog International Press Institute condemned Vincent's killing and urged Iraqi authorities to conduct a speedy and thorough investigation. The death underscored how "Iraq continues to be the most dangerous country in the world in which to work as a journalist," the group said.
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