The U.S. army launched a major offensive early Tuesday in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley. 
Air strikes by American warplanes and dozens of helicopters set off explosions that lit the city skylines of Haqlaniyah and nearby Parwana. Barrages of gunfire also were seen in the night sky. Large sections of Haqlaniyah's power were knocked out before dawn, the AP reported. The cities, with a combined population of about 80,000, are located 90 miles east of the Sadah village offensive and 175 miles northwest of Baghdad.
About 2,500 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors and several hundred Iraqi soldiers were taking part in the raid, which started three days after some 1,000 service members launched a separate offensive farther to the west near the Syrian border in the village of Sadah and two nearby towns, Rumana and Karabila.
That sweep, dubbed Operation Iron Fist, continued Tuesday against foreign fighters, the military said.
Two U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed in western Iraq, the military said Tuesday. Also Tuesday a suicide car bomb went off at a checkpoint at the main entrance of Baghdad's Green Zone, killing two Iraqi policemen and injuring one, police said.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
