BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces in western Iraq are facing fierce resistance to their new effort to take control of the Syrian border, with car bombs and an apparent ambush killing eight U.S. troops in a single day, Army and Marine officials said yesterday.

Today, meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy reported that freelance U.S. journalist Steven Vincent was fatally shot in the southern city of Basra.

Monday's deadly series of attacks included the ambush of six Marines on a foot patrol outside of Haditha, Marine officials said. Five Marines were killed by small-arms fire in the initial assault, but one was "unaccounted for" and later found dead a couple of miles away, a Marine statement said. Officials declined to say whether he was taken hostage before he was killed.

A seventh Marine was killed by a car bomb in nearby Hit. All of the slain Marines were assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division.

A U.S. Army soldier was killed near the Syrian border in a car bombing that also injured an Army Times reporter.

As of yesterday, at least 1,806 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,390 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.

After the attack, residents of Haditha said several masked gunmen identifying themselves as members of the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, a major Sunni Arab insurgent group, appeared in the market carrying helmets, flak jackets and automatic rifles they said belonged to U.S. troops.

They distributed fliers claiming they had killed 10 U.S. service members.

An uncle of one of the slain Marines identified him as Lance Cpl. Jeff Boskovitch, an aspiring police officer who had planned to set a wedding date with his girlfriend when he returned home from Iraq this fall.

"We got a lot of e-mail from him," Paul Boskovitch said. "He felt he was making a difference there and that the Iraqi people were appreciative of what they were doing."

All six reservists were from northeastern Ohio and were members of the Headquarters and Service Co. 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, based in Brook Park, a suburb of about 21,000 people southwest of Cleveland.

Unit members in Iraq were under a military-imposed communications blackout to make sure none of the names was disclosed until victims' families were notified. Family members identified two of the dead as Boskovitch and Sgt. Nathaniel Rock of Toronto.

Boskovitch, of North Royalton, joined the Marine reserves in 2000, his uncle said.

Rock, 26, spent six years in the Marines after graduating from high school in 1997 and then joined the reserves, said his mother, Adriana Rock. At home in Ohio, he worked as a part-time police officer in Martins Ferry.

The battalion was activated in January and went to Iraq in March.

There was no word from the military on whether any insurgents were killed in the incidents in western Iraq. The deaths of the Americans, though, highlight the intensity of the fighting in the area after a recent order by Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in the country, to control Iraq's western border by November.

In the attack on the journalist, Iraqi police said Vincent was shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint yesterday afternoon. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.

Embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell said today, "I can confirm to you that officials in Basra have recovered the body of journalist Steven Vincent. Our condolences go out to the family."

Police said Vincent, a writer who had lived in New York, had been staying in Basra working on a book about the history of the city.

In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, Vincent 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 was also critical of the British military, which is responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shiite extremists in the city.

He was the author of "In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq," a recently published book.

His Web site describes him as a freelance investigative journalist and art critic whose work had appeared in newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, Harper's and the Christian Science Monitor.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of June 28, at least 45 journalists and 20 media support workers had died while covering the war in Iraq since March 2003.

As the military pressed on with its campaign in western Iraq, families in the Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Disheer mourned 22 Shiite Muslim men who were executed and left Monday in a trash heap in the nearby Um Maalif area.

What made the incident unusual, officials said, was that none of the men appeared to have a connection with the government or security forces, except for two former police officers. Insurgents frequently target Iraqi security forces.

Yesterday, the Defense Ministry said that since April 1, 2,709 Iraqis have died in attacks, including 1,413 civilians. The rest were soldiers, police and insurgents.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.