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U.S. launches another offensive in Iraq

Forces raid three towns to take them back from militants; suicide blast in the Green Zone

HAQLANIYAH (IRAQ): Some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces launched their second major offensive in western Iraq in a week on Tuesday, sweeping into three towns to take them back from militants who drove out Iraqi forces and killed Marines there last month.

The U.S. military announced its first casualties of the offensives, with four service members killed by roadside bombs during the fighting and a fifth elsewhere.

The assaults in western Iraq aim to put down Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni-led militant groups that have waged a campaign of violence aimed at wrecking a crucial Oct. 15 national vote on a new Constitution.

Boycott threat

The United States has hoped the new charter would bring together the fractious communities, but Sunnis sharply oppose it. Sunni Arab moderates threatened on Tuesday to boycott the voting after the Shia-led Parliament passed new rules over the weekend that make it effectively impossible for Sunnis to defeat the charter at the ballot box.

The new rules deepened alienation over the political process among Sunnis, who had decided to participate in the referendum but to vote no — but who now said the Shiites were using their dominance to stack the deck against them. A boycott would undermine the referendum's legitimacy and strike a blow to hopes that political progress would weaken Sunni support for the insurgency.

In Baghdad, a suicide attacker set off a car bomb at the main entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, a district of Iraqi government buildings and the U.S. and British Embassies. The powerful blast killed two policemen.

The attack came on the first day of Ramzan. Al-Qaeda in Iraq called on its followers to step up attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces to mark the month and make it a ``month of victory for Muslims and a month of defeat for the hypocrites and polytheists.''

Previous Ramzans, since the invasion and occupation of Iraq two years ago, saw spike in violence in Iraq — especially suicide attacks. In another statement, Al-Qaeda in Iraq urged Sunnis to boycott the referendum, saying U.S. authorities would fix the vote. ``You know very well that the Americans are going to supervise collecting the voting boxes and counting the votes,'' it said.

Baghdad battle

Violence involving militants has killed at least 237 persons, including 21 U.S. forces, across Iraq in the past nine days.

In Tuesday's worst clash in the capital, Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. helicopters fought about 40 militants house-to-house in south Baghdad. More than three dozen militants were killed, wounded or detained, the U.S. military said. Three Iraqi soldiers were injured.

The U.S. military launched its latest offensive in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley about 220 km northwest of Baghdad on Tuesday. Code-named River Gate, it was the largest U.S. offensive in the troubled Anbar region of western Iraq this year, the military said. It also included hundreds of Iraqi troops, the largest Iraq contingent of any of the offensives this year.

Air strikes by U.S. warplanes and dozens of helicopters set off explosions that lit up Haqlaniyah and Haditha before dawn on Tuesday. Barrages of gunfire also were seen in the night sky. Large sections of Haqlaniyah's power were knocked out. — AP

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