U.S. and Iraqi troops storm town

BAGHDAD, Iraq — About 3,500 U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by warplanes dropping 500-pound bombs assaulted a town near the Syrian border Saturday reputed to be a crossing point for foreign fighters. House-to-house searches were planned to root out all resistance and hamper the guerrilla network operating in the Euphrates Valley.

The operation in Husaybah, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, the capital, was one of the largest since U.S. forces retook the Sunni triangle city of Fallujah a year ago. Early reports, however, indicated only sporadic resistance, a sign that guerrillas might have fled the town before the attack began.

As of midnight local time, there were no reported casualties among the coalition or civilians forces, as operations continued.

The 2nd Marine Division said 1,000 soldiers of the Iraqi army were taking part alongside 2,500 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors. The assault was said to be the first time that battalion-size Iraqi units have fought alongside U.S. forces in restive Anbar province, stretching west almost from Baghdad to the Syrian border.

The province is home to a major portion of the Sunni-led resistance to the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

A Marine Corps statement described Husaybah as "one of the main centers for transiting foreign fighters, equipment and money into Iraq." The objectives were to restore security along the border and to destroy what was described as an al-Qaida terror network operating throughout Husaybah.

The force was met by sporadic gunfire and roadside bombs in the town of low-built concrete houses. By late in the day, the military said, six bombs and mines had been found, and one suspected suicide car bomb had been destroyed.

At least nine airstrikes were carried out on buildings suspected of sheltering insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi troops, the military said. About 400 civilian residents fleeing their homes during the assault were being put into a temporary lodging area, the Marines said.

With about 30,000 residents, Husaybah is an impoverished border town surrounded by mountains and desert.

Elsewhere in Iraq, insurgents in two black sedans forced a minibus filled with Shiite Muslim passengers to stop and then shot them about 8 p.m. Saturday near the Iranian border, police said.

According to information reaching the hospital in the city of Baqouba, 13 passengers were killed and two survived — a 19-year-old man and a 5-year-old child. The shootings took place near Balad Ruz, 30 miles south of Baqouba.

The killings come at a time of sectarian tensions between Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who were favored during the former regime of ousted President Saddam Hussein, and Shiite Arabs, who were oppressed under Saddam but now dominate the government.

A prominent Sunni politician in Baghdad, Fakhri Qaysi, secretary of the Salfiya Board and a member of the National Dialogue Council, was seriously wounded in the chest and arm in a drive-by shooting near his home in Baghdad's Ghazahliyah neighborhood, a police source said.

Meanwhile, the military said Saturday that three more U.S. troops had been killed elsewhere in Iraq.

One soldier was killed Friday by small-arms fire south of Baghdad, and another died the same day when the vehicle in his patrol was hit by a mine near Habaniyah, 50 miles west of the capital. The third soldier was killed Saturday in a traffic accident in southern Iraq.

Those deaths raised to at least 2,045 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.