US fighter planes dropped a series of 500 lb bombs on insurgent targets in western Iraq overnight as the US military launched a heavy offensive against rebels near the Syrian border.
Nine of the powerful bombs were dropped, the US military said, two of them targeting suspected rebel safe houses near the town of Qaim, an insurgent stronghold on the Euphrates river about 20 km east of Iraq's border with Syria.
Four more were aimed at rebels as they fired mortars and assault rifles at US ground forces near Qaim, and a further three were used to hit suspected weapons caches in the area.
The air power was in support of Operation Spear, the third major offensive US forces have launched in western Iraq in the past six weeks with the aim of crushing insurgent activity in the Euphrates valley which stretches northwest to Syria.
"Operation Spear ... began in the early morning hours with the objectives of rooting out insurgents and foreign fighters and disrupting insurgent support systems in and around Karabila," Captain Jeffrey Pool of the US Marines said in a statement from Ramadi, capital of the surrounding Anbar region.
Iraqi troops and US tank and amphibious assault units were involved, he added. About 1,000 troops were taking part in all.
Residents in Karabila, a suburb of Qaim where the suspected weapons caches were targeted, said fierce gunbattles broke out overnight and continued. US forces said air strikes killed about 40 rebels near there on June 11th.
The leader in Qaim of the Muslim Clerics Association, a leading voice for the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority, said he was calling for businesses to remain closed and residents to stay in their homes after weekly prayers in protest at US action he said was endangering civilians.
“The US forces are escalating the situation and we will declare a general strike after Friday prayers,” Mudhafar al-Ani said.