http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050618/NEWS06/506180487/1012

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops bombarded a dusty border town with airstrikes and tank fire Friday, capturing 100 militants in the third major recent attempt to uproot insurgents who are believed to be using the region to sneak foreign suicide bombers in from Syria.

In a campaign code-named Romhe, Arabic for spear, about 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces, backed by tanks, fought their way into Karabilah in volatile Anbar province.

During daylong battles, Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought "insurgents holed up in buildings within the city," Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.

"Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed these targets. Only buildings occupied by insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed. Three buildings were confirmed destroyed," Pool said.

No U.S. or Iraqi military casualties were reported.

Last month, Marines carried out two major operations in the area, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign and 14 in the second. Eleven Marines were killed in those two actions, designed to scatter and eradicate insurgents using the road from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad.

The new campaign began just before dawn in the desert wastes around Karabilah and nearby Qaim, a lawless town about 200 miles west of Baghdad that squats at the crossroads of an insurgent-smuggling route leading into Iraq from neighboring Syria.

During the assault, troops captured about 100 foreign fighters and found at least one car bomb factory, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the 2nd Marine Division. He said U.S. and Iraqi troops encountered some resistance.

While Iraqi troops did not participate in the two earlier offensives, they fought Friday alongside the Marines, using their language skills and knowledge of the area to spot foreign fighters, Chase said.

Also near Ramadi, two Marines were killed Thursday when their vehicle hit a bomb during combat operations, the military said. The deaths raised to 13 the number of Marines killed in separate attacks in Anbar during the past week. Two sailors also have died.

At least 1,716 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In other violence Friday, four suicide attacks in Iraq, including one in the capital, killed 11 people, as rebels seeking to lead Iraq into a civil war intensified the pace and scope of attacks against Iraq's still-weak security forces. More than 60 people have died in suicide attacks in the past two days.

At least 1,095 people have been killed since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced in late April.

According to an AP count, from April 26 to June 16, at least 136 vehicle bombings have killed at least 492 people and wounded at least 1,409. In addition, at least 10 suicide bombers, wearing explosives, have killed at least 188 people and wounded at least 493.