US Marines take aim at new hot spot in Iraq

Over the next few days, officials said, more than 5,000 American and British troops, along with 1,200 members of the Iraqi security forces, are expected to take part in the offensive, dubbed Operation Plymouth Rock. Terming it their first major post-Falluja campaign to regain control of an insurgent-riddled area outside Baghdad, officials said they would continue a series of preplanned raids in towns and farming areas largely within a so-called ‘‘death triangle’’ of cities bordered by Latifiya, Mahmoudiya and Yousifiya.

The operation began in the predawn darkness less than a day after Iraqi security forces recovered 12 bodies in Latifiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, where kidnappings of highway travellers have been commonplace for months. Five of the bodies had been beheaded, and one was identified as that of an Iraqi national guardsman kidnapped from a nearby town several weeks ago.Earlier this month, US Marines found the bodies of about 20 Iraqi national guard recruits, some in civilian clothes, who had been killed execution-style in a mosque and elsewhere west of Latifiya.

The largely Sunni Muslim towns and small cities in this rural region are home to an estimated 1 million people and were a stronghold of deposed President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The region is also home to many of Saddam’s Fidayeen fighters and elite Republican Guards, who were among the greatest losers in last year’s US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq as Hussein’s armed forces were defeated and then disbanded.

The area was also a major center for Saddam’s military industries and munitions plants, and remains awash in both explosives and skilled workers who know how to use them. Among the facilities in the region is the Al Qaa ammunition site, where about 380 tons of high-grade explosives were believed to be looted after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.

Marines have uncovered several weapons caches in northern Babil province buried in dirt fields. The arms include mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and 500-pound bombs. At this point, though, they believe they have made only a dent in the supply.

The insurgents have fired back on patrols and on low-flying helicopters backing up the ground forces. They have also planted more homemade bombs along the province’s roads. The number of such explosive devices that have gone off or been defused has more than doubled since early fall.

The Americans say they have received sketchy reports of sightings of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant who has taken credit for the beheadings of hostages and numerous attacks on US and Iraq forces.