US Marines kill 25 Iraqis in Ramadi clashes
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-22 17:06

U.S. Marines killed 25 insurgents and captured 25 others in several hours of fierce fighting on Wednesday, the military said Thursday.

The fighting in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, wounded 14 U.S. servicemen, but none sustained life threatening injuries and 10 have returned to duty, according to the Marine statement.

Ramadi shopkeepers were seen shuttering their stores Thursday, apparently in fear of more clashes. It was not immediately clear if fighting had resumed.

U.S. Army soldiers patrol near Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, July 22, 2004. One Iraqi police officer and another Iraqi suffered gunshot wounds in an overnight clash in the area, which was also the scene of another gun battle earlier this month. [AP]

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, insurgents battled with U.S. soldiers on Haifa Street, the scene of another gunbattle earlier this month, according to an unidentified hospital official interviewed by Associated Press Television News. Two Iraqis were reported wounded.

The official said one police officer and another man suffered gunshot wounds in the Thursday fighting. It was not immediately clear how serious the wounds were or who the second wounded person was.

American soldiers in armored vehicles and a U.S. sniper on a rooftop were seen on the street after the clashes. On July 7, clashes on the same street between Iraqi security forces and insurgents killed four people and wounded 20.

The daylong clashes in Ramadi began after insurgents detonated a roadside bomb near a Marine convoy at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday in an ambush attempt. Between eight and 10 Iraqi fighters then attacked the Marines with small arms and rocket propelled grenades.

"This initial skirmish led to ensuing engagements that pitted elements of the (U.S. Marines) 1st Brigade Combat team ... against what is being estimated as at least 75-100 AIF," the statement said.

Backed U.S. warplanes, the American ground forces clashed with the insurgents for hours, during which the Marines also safely detonated two homemade bombs, including one placed in a car.

The statement said 25 insurgents died in the fighting and another 17 were wounded.

Ramadi is located in Anbar Province, a Sunni-dominated area west of the Iraqi capital which has been a hotbed of anti-coalition insurgency.

In other violence, assailants attacked a police patrol and a government-run cultural center in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, wounding two people, security officials said Thursday.

Capt. Salam Zangana, of the Kirkuk police, told The Associated Press that unknown assailants opened fire on a police patrol in Kirkuk early Thursday, seriously wounding one lieutenant. They escaped.

In the other attack, Aslan Mohammed Rashim, a cultural center official in Kirkuk, was shot by an unknown assailant Wednesday night, said Maj. Gen. Amer Mohammed Amin of the Iraqi National Guard.

Rashim, an ethnic Turkoman, was walking to his car after leaving his office in this ethnically mixed city when the attack occurred, Amin said. He was in stable condition.

Iraqi insurgents have routinely targeted Kurdish and Turkomen officials in Kirkuk, seeking to foment ethnic tension. Militants operating in Kirkuk have also been behind a string of attacks and assassination attempts against police.

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