Major Military Operations

U.S. Marines accompanied by more than 1,000 Iraqi troops [note: 1000 troops equals 1 battalion - GS] today began a second major offensive in four days in western Iraq, moving to recapture a cluster of Euphrates River towns at the hub of an insurgent infiltration route from Syria.

The U.S. military said five Marines died Monday; four were hit by a roadside bomb outside the town of Haqlaniya on the eve of the latest assault and one was killed on the third day of fighting near the town of Karabla. They were the first American casualties of the two offensives in Al Anbar province, an insurgent staging ground for attacks throughout Iraq.

In Baghdad, a suicide attacker set off a car bomb at the main entrance to the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district that houses Iraqi government ministries and the U.S. and British embassies. The blast killed three Iraqi policemen.

Today was the first day of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Al Qaeda, the most vocal insurgent group in Iraq, urged its followers to intensify their attacks and make it "a month of defeat" for U.S. and Iraqi forces.

And:

Five US troops were killed in western Iraq yesterday, the US military said, as coalition forces pushed an assault in the rebel heartland close to the Syrian border.

A marine died in a bomb attack in Karabilah during Operation 'Iron Fist', one of two large-scale anti-insurgency sweeps in the area, a statement said today.

Three other soldiers assigned to the marines were killed in another bomb blast in Haqlaniyah, also in western Iraq, it added, without providing further details.

A fifth soldier died of gunshots wounds near Taqaddum, the military said, giving no details, but adding that the incident was under investigation.

The latest deaths bring to 1,931 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on Pentagon figures.

Another five civilian Defence Department employees have also been killed.

This period is expected to be a hot month or so for US troops in Iraq leading up to the Constitutional vote in November. It also needs to be a hot topic in the American discussion: this war continues, the costs continue, and we're no safer because of it.