4 Marines Slain on Patrol in a Sunni Triangle Town

Four U.S. Marines were slain in the rebellious Sunni Triangle town of Ramadi, west of here, a military spokesman said Monday. Television footage showed the four uniformed bodies lying sprawled in an outdoor courtyard, stripped of the helmets and flak jackets all troops wear on patrol.

The circumstances and location of the attack were not immediately clear. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman, provided little information about the incident other than to say the Marines were killed while on patrol.

“There was a time when they should have reported in and did not report in,” and a search was launched, he said.

Kimmitt was withholding the names of the dead until their relatives were notified. The Marine Expeditionary Force appealed to U.S. television networks not to show footage that might reveal their identities.

In the northern part of the country, four Iraqis working for a private contracting company were killed in a roadside bombing near Mosul. And four insurgents were killed during a mortar attack on a U.S. base near Samarra, about 60 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Kimmitt continued to defend a U.S. missile strike Saturday on a Fallouja neighborhood, which killed 22 people. Local officials and members of the Fallouja Brigade, the U.S.-backed force that patrols the city, say the strike killed only civilians, including women and children.

“Post-strike intelligence continues to indicate that this was a safe house with a lot of ammunition being stored,” Kimmitt said, adding that the attack killed “key personnel” in the network of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terrorist accused by the U.S. of directing attacks throughout Iraq.

Hundreds of Iraqis rallied in Fallouja on Monday to protest the airstrike. Demonstrators accused the Americans of falsely claiming that Zarqawi had sought refuge in the city.

Also Monday, Iraq resumed oil exports six days after attackers blasted pipelines carrying crude oil to the Basra terminal on the Persian Gulf. Iraqi officials have announced stepped-up measures to protect the oil industry, which is the foundation of the nation’s economy.

Associated Press contributed to this report.