Widespread Iraq violence leaves swath of casualties

BAGHDAD, Iraq — At least five U.S. soldiers and a dozen Iraqis were reported slain across Iraq as American and Iraqi troops continued their offensive Monday in the western town of Husaybah and insurgents targeted security forces and civilians.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed Monday when a suicide car bomber struck their vehicle at a checkpoint south of Baghdad. Another died Sunday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad, the military announced.

The deaths brought to at least 2,051 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war started in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 24 have died this month — most in roadside bombings.

In other violence, mortar shells struck a residential Baghdad neighborhood, killing five Iraqis and injuring six. A police convoy in the capital hit a roadside bomb, killing two and injuring two.

In northern Iraq, masked gunmen stormed an Internet cafe in Mosul and killed Ahmed Hussein Malaki, editor in chief of a weekly newspaper. A car bomb near Kirkuk killed four police officers guarding oil facilities.

Iraqi Army Brig. Gen. Hamid Shafiq narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near his Baghdad home, and an employee of the Sudanese Embassy was shot in the neck but managed to drive himself to a hospital and survived.

Meanwhile, 2,500 U.S. military personnel backed by 1,000 Iraqi troops and American warplanes entered the third day of a counter-insurgency operation in the Euphrates River valley town of Husaybah, allegedly a stronghold of violent Sunni Arab resistance to the U.S.-led military occupation and Iraq's transitional government, led by Shiites and Kurds.

Insurgents were launching sporadic attacks, sometimes from schools and mosques, the Marines said in a statement. The Marines vowed that U.S. forces would exercise restraint and that "no airstrikes have been conducted against any mosques" during the operation.

Troops conducted house-to-house searches throughout the town, largely emptied of civilians who have fled to makeshift tent cities in the desert. Marines have discovered weapons caches, including homemade bombs, the statement said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have staged numerous large-scale counter-insurgency operations to root out insurgents from towns near the Syrian border. But without enough U.S. and Iraqi government manpower to maintain an ongoing presence in such areas, insurgents frequently return once the troops depart.

In the latest fighting, one Marine has been reported killed. A dozen U.S. soldiers and Marines have been treated at the U.S. Air Force Theater Hospital near Balad in central Iraq, according to the hospital commander, Col. Elisha T. Powell.

Black Hawk helicopters fly the wounded to the hospital, set up in a series of connecting tents surrounded by sandbags and concrete blast walls.

The number of U.S. casualties received at the hospital from the Euphrates River Valley region, stretching from Baghdad northwest to the Syrian border, has increased in the past two weeks as U.S. forces have stepped up operations to close infiltration routes, Powell said.

The Marine statement said at least 36 insurgents had been killed since the assault began Saturday in the town 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The Marines said three insurgents disguised as women tried to enter a camp for displaced civilians in Husaybah on Monday but were killed by Iraqi guards who spotted their weapons.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.