US launches sweep on Iraqi militants

BAGHDAD -- US Marines said yesterday they had launched a new counter-insurgency operation in a volatile Anbar Province, the latest in a series of sweeps designed to root out militant bases in Iraq's Euphrates valley.

Operation Scimitar involved about 500 US troops and 100 Iraqis, making it about half the scale of Operation Sword and Operation Spear in the past three weeks.

The military said the Marines had detained 22 suspected militants since the raid was launched in secret in the village of Zaidon, 20 miles southeast of Fallujah, on Thursday.

Washington says the western Euphrates valley between the Syrian border and Baghdad is a conduit for foreign militants responsible for a wave of suicide bombings that worsened after the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took power in April.

Marines in western Iraq have launched operations just about weekly, hoping to clear insurgents out of town after town.

During Operation Spear, they called in airstrikes and left much of the border town of Karabila in ruins after battles they said killed dozens of insurgents. Operation Sword was quieter, with no heavy resistance reported.

This month has seen a relative lull in car bombings, down to about one a day in Baghdad from twice that last month. But US commanders say that the total number of insurgent attacks is fairly constant, at 50 to 60 a day, and that there has been a shift toward other forms of violence, including attacks on diplomats.

Offering condolences to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the killing of Cairo's envoy to Baghdad, who was abducted a week ago by Al Qaeda militants, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani proposed a regional conference on fighting the violence.

The Baghdad government and its sponsors in Washington have been trying to stem an exodus of diplomats after other attacks on the Pakistani and Bahraini envoys.

The violence seems aimed at thwarting the government's efforts to win greater recognition from cautious Muslim and Arab states.

Referring to the killing of Egypt's Ihab al-Sherif, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said: ''This cowardly act is an attempt to terrorize a brotherly Arab Muslim country."

Egypt said it was cutting staff at its embassy.

Iraqi comments on the ambassador drew a firm response from Cairo.

Egypt has asked the Iraqi Embassy in Cairo to explain an Iraqi suggestion that Sherif was in touch with Iraqi insurgents, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said yesterday. A statement from the ministry did not deny that such contacts took place but asked whether the purpose of Iraqi remarks was to ''avoid responsibility . . . and justify a tragedy."

Pakistan withdrew its ambassador after his motorcade was fired on, and Bahrain's envoy was wounded by gunmen.

Other Arab countries, mostly ruled by Sunnis, have yet to give their diplomats in Baghdad full ambassador status, although Iraq says Jordan and Syria will soon do so and Egypt had planned to before Sherif was killed.

Baghdad and Washington have called on Arab states not to let the attacks stop them from upgrading ties.

Speaking to CNN, King Abdullah of Jordan said his country would not let militants influence Jordanian policy and would soon send an ambassador to Baghdad.