Bush's resolve 'unshakeable'
2004-04-07 07:24
Baghdad - About 12 US Marines have been killed and two dozen wounded as US-led forces in Iraq engage in fierce battles with both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim factions across the country.
Between 60 and 70 Iraqi insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked the marines in a government palace in Ar Ramadi, about 80km west of Baghdad, said a US defence official in Washington.
"We had about 12 dead and a couple dozen wounded," added the official, who requested anonymity.
"We're pretty sure we got most of them in much greater numbers than us," the official said, adding that followers of Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr were suspected of carrying out the attack.
Ar Ramadi is in the strife-wracked Sunni Triangle, 32km west of Fallujah, where US forces were staging a separate operation to find those responsible for the killing of four US security contractors last week.
More than 100 Iraqis have been killed and hundreds wounded in the past three days as coalition troops tackle furious assaults by rebels loyal to the radical Muslim Shi'ite cleric Sadr.
About 30 coalition troops, including the Marines, have now been killed over the same period, military sources said. About 620 US soldiers have now been killed since the invasion of Iraq in March last year.
US tanks and armoured vehicles met heavy resistance as they rolled into Fallujah as Operation Vigilant Resolve tracked down the insurgents behind the mutilation of the four Americans.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that a number of people had been killed and detained in the operation.
The force, backed by AC-130 gunships and Cobra helicopters, took six hours to secure control of the area, amid hit-and-run attacks by insurgents firing mortars and assault rifles from rooftops, said US army's Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.
In the United States, the White House announced that US generals will decide whether extra troops are needed to handle mounting unrest in Iraq.
US President George W Bush's spokesperson Scott McClellan said that troop levels in Iraq "are decisions (Bush) leaves to the military leaders who are in the best position to make those decisions".
McClellan also insisted that those responsible for the increased violence in Iraq were "a small minority" and that most Iraqis want democracy.
Bush, who headed to his ranch in Texas where he plans to stay over the Easter holiday, said in a speech in El Dorado, Arkansas that the United States would not move from its plan to hand over power to an interim Iraqi administration on June 30.
"We'll stay the course in Iraq. We are not going to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. We will not cut and run from the people who want freedom."