8 U.S. Troops Killed in Action, Most in Battleground Province

U.S. military officials announced Sunday that at least eight U.S. troops were killed, most of them in Al Anbar province, a vast region comprising the battleground cities of Fallouja and Ramadi.

A Marine Expeditionary Force statement said seven Marines were killed Sunday in two incidents as they conducted “security and stabilization operations” in the province.

The military said a soldier was killed and three wounded Saturday by a roadside bomb in Baghdad’s northern suburbs.

Early today, at least seven people were killed and 17 wounded, none of them U.S. troops, when a suicide car bomber attacked an entrance to Baghdad’s Green Zone government compound, officials said.

Details about the incidents involving the Marines were not provided because “that could put our personnel at greater risk,” the military said.

The Marine statement, datelined Camp Fallouja, suggested that the fatalities occurred in or near the city, where U.S.-led forces have battled insurgents for weeks.

American missiles pounded Fallouja Sunday as insurgents fought running battles with U.S.-led forces. Earlier in the day, the military announced that a Marine had died in a battle with militants. It was unclear if he was one of the seven fatalities disclosed later in the day.

As of Sunday, at least 1,296 members of the U.S. military had died since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to Associated Press.

Fallouja erupted in violence when American and Iraqi forces clashed with guerrillas in several suburbs and ended with U.S. airstrikes on suspected insurgent hide-outs. “The strikes were conducted throughout the day and were called in by troops in [armed] contact with and observing the enemy moving from house to house,” spokesman Lt. Lyle Gilbert said.

Fallouja resident Abdullah Ahmed said the fighting started after U.S. troops brought 700 to 800 men into the city to clear rubble from damage caused by November’s offensive.

“The clashes started as soon as the young men entered the city,” Ahmed said. “The American troops were surprised and decided to launch military operations.”

Thousands of Fallouja residents have left to escape the fighting. Many have set up tents in Baghdad and other areas.

“The war is still on in Fallouja. That’s what people are telling us. The mujahedin still control a major part of the city,” said Harith Khudayri, who volunteers at a camp for displaced Falloujans at the Baghdad University mosque, where more than 100 families live in an encampment.

The deaths underscore difficult choices facing U.S. and Iraqi authorities, who must soon decide whether to allow Falloujans to return to their homes. Officials hoped the city’s residents could return this month in time to register to vote in Jan. 30 parliamentary elections.

Iraq’s postwar political hopefuls continue to jostle for position prior to the elections, the first such vote to be held since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.

Two moderate, mainly Sunni Muslim parties announced they would field slates for the elections, indicating an apparent strengthening of support for the vote among the religious minority, despite calls from some Sunni politicians for a boycott.

Sunnis traditionally had enjoyed privilege in Iraq but have lost their advantage since Hussein’s fall. The country’s Shiites, about 60% of the population, are expected to exploit their standing as the majority and dominate the postelection legislature.

Iraq’s interim government said the vote must go ahead, despite a rampant insurgency fueled mainly by Sunni extremists in a bid to derail the elections.

Elsewhere, two insurgents died after detonating their explosives-packed car alongside an American Abrams tank in Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad, at about 10:45 a.m., military spokesman Master Sgt. Robert Powell said. No soldiers were wounded and the tank sustained negligible damage.

Four decapitated bodies in civilian clothes were found south of Baghdad, and their identities were unclear, police said. The victims, believed to have been Iraqis, were found in Haswa, 30 miles south of the capital.