US, Iraqi forces hit back at insurgents

BAGHDAD -- US and Iraqi forces struck back at insurgents yesterday, storming a cluster of northwestern towns in a region where 22 Marines have been killed this week.

The assault near the city of Haditha, in violence-plagued Anbar Province, occurred as politicians seeking to complete a draft of a new Iraqi constitution by Aug. 15 suffered a setback.

Leaders of the committee writing the document and top government officials postponed until tomorrow a meeting scheduled to work through several remaining sticking points.

The delay occurred after Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq who is pushing for greater regional autonomy, decided to remain in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, to huddle for a day with his parliament before traveling to Baghdad.

In Anbar, beginning before 6 a.m., 180 Iraqi soldiers and 900 members of the Second Marine Division, backed by M1-A1 Abrams tanks, helicopters, and jets bearing 500-pound bombs, stormed into Haditha, Haqlaniyah, and other small towns along the Euphrates River where military officials believe insurgents are mustering to launch attacks.

Iraqi Special Operations forces helped direct US airstrikes yesterday morning, according to a military news release.

The province has seen at least a half-dozen similar-size offensives by Marines since early May, most farther west along the Syrian border, where forces have sought to stem the flow of foreign fighters and weapons into Iraq. But the insurgency has remained strong in the Sunni Arab-dominated region, where opposition to the US presence runs deep.

''When we did operations out west, the insurgents moved to the Haditha-Haqlaniyah area," said Colonel Bob Chase, the operations chief, Second Marine Division.

''That area is a geographic crossroads where they can get north to Mosul and east to Ramadi and Baghdad," he said. ''It has good urban terrain for them to melt into. And we are well aware there are still plenty of ammunition supplies from the Saddam Hussein era for them to make use of."

The Marines were already positioning Wednesday for the initial stages of what they have dubbed Operation Quick Strike when 14 were killed as an amphibious assault vehicle struck a roadside bomb near Haditha.

Chase said the roadside bombing, and an attack Monday in which six Marines were killed by small-arms fire, were still under investigation. There is ''no evidence whatsoever" that insurgents were tipped off by Iraqi forces in launching the attacks, he said, adding that investigators hoped to determine who was responsible for the bombing by matching the technique and ordnance used previous events.

''Sometimes these things have a signature on them," he said.

Two Marines were killed in other action this week.

During yesterday's operation, resistance was sporadic from insurgents wielding small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. No casualties were reported, but a potentially dangerous situation was averted when Marines discovered a pair of buildings linked by trip wires and packed with 155mm artillery rounds. The buildings were then leveled.

Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday, much attention focused on efforts to reach a compromise on issues remaining to be settled in the constitution-writing process.

Prime Minister Ibrahim alJaafari met with Iraq's most influential Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in the southern city of Najaf. Jaafari was seeking support for two constitutional provisions still encountering opposition: that Islam is the basis of Iraqi law and that the country be governed through a federal system in which some power is devolved to regions.