Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
HUSAYBAH, Iraq - Five Marines were killed and scores of insurgent Iraqis were slain in a fierce 14-hour battle Saturday between Marines and mujahedeen fighters who slipped into the town of Husaybah, near Qaim on the Syrian border.
According to Marines, an estimated 300 Iraqis from Fallujah and Ramadi launched an assault against the Americans in Husaybah about 8 a.m. local time, beginning with a roadside bombing and a flurry of 24 mortars.
When Marines responded to the bombing, they were met with small-arms and machine-gun fire as they neared a former Baath Party headquarters.
Marines responding to the call for help were mortared and strafed as they made their way into the city. Additional Marines then joined in the fight.
Fighting continued late into the night as Marine Cobra helicopter gunships strafed enemy positions near a downtown soccer stadium and Marine helicopters continued to take wounded to their main base 22 miles away at Camp Al-Qaim.
At least nine Marines were injured and about 20 Iraqis captured, Marines said. The detainees were taken to Camp Al-Qaim late Saturday night for questioning.
All of the Marines were killed in the first hour of the fighting, four of them when they went to clear out a house where Iraqi fighters were hiding.
The battalion commander, Col. Matthew Lopez, said he believed the Marines had crushed the insurgents' attack.
"I don't think they expected us to retaliate as hard as we did," said Lopez, 40, of Chicago, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines.
Elsewhere Saturday, the U.S. military closed down two major highways into Baghdad on Saturday in the latest disruption caused by intensified attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents, and U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reported progress in talks aimed at easing the fighting in Fallujah, while the besieged city saw its quietest day yet.
Sections of the two highways, north and south of the capital, were closed off to repair damage from a mounting number of roadside bombs. Commanders suggested the routes remained vulnerable to attacks by insurgents who have been targeting U.S. military supply lines.
"We've got to fix those roads, we've also got to protect those roads," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.
The military warned that civilians found on the closed sections "may be considered to be anticoalition forces" and come under U.S. fire. Kimmitt said civilians would be redirected around the closed sections.
"There are many ways to get into Baghdad and many ways for getting out of Baghdad," he said.
Meanwhile, two Japanese hostages - an aid worker and a freelance journalist - were released Saturday to the same group of Islamic clerics who negotiated the freedom of three Japanese hostages last week.
Gunfire was nearly halted in Fallujah on Friday night, and the quiet continued through Saturday. A nominal truce since April 11 had been repeatedly shaken by nighttime battles as both insurgents and Marines dug in.
Talks toward ending the standoff were to resume Monday, but the top U.S. military negotiator suggested their continuation depended on continued quiet.
"I can't stress enough how key it is for the cease-fire to hold over the next 24 to 48 hours," said Maj. Gen. Joseph Weber, the top U.S. military negotiator.
The military said Saturday a U.S. soldier was killed two days earlier when his patrol hit an antitank mine near Tikrit.
In the south, U.S. troops skirmished for a second day with militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. His aides said Iraqi-led mediation aimed at resolving a standoff with the Americans had broken down.
Militiamen attacked two U.S. Humvees outside Najaf, sparking a battle, witnesses said. Sadr loyalists also fired mortars at the Spanish army base in the city, but there were no casualties.
A coalition soldier - apparently a member of the Spanish-led force in the city - was killed the night before in fighting with the militia, the U.S. military said.
- Information from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Associated Press was used in this report.