Militants killed five US Marines, and authorities found 21 bodies near the Syrian border, where American and Iraqi troops bore down in two recent major operations aimed at crushing a tenacious insurgency.

Insurgents in western Iraq killed five US Marines and sliced the heads off three Iraqis, part of a group of 21 men whose bodies were found dumped in the desert near the Syrian border after being gagged and shot.

About 1,000 US Marines, sailors and soldiers encircled the Euphrates River city of Haditha in the troubled Anbar province, killing at least three insurgents after launching the second major anti-insurgent operation in this vast western region in less than a month.

WHEN George W Bush and Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, they promised to bring peace and stability to the country.

THE bodies of at least 30 men, including 10 Iraqi soldiers, were found shot execution-style in three locations across Iraq yesterday.

AMERICAN fighter jets flattened a suspected insurgent safe house near the Syrian border and hundreds of US troops conducted house-to-house searches in remote desert villages for followers militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

American fighter jets flattened a suspected insurgent safe house near the Syrian border, the US military said today, as hundreds of US troops searched remote desert villages house by house for followers of Iraq’s most wanted militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

MILITANTS assassinated a general and a colonel and a car bomb exploded near a busy market in Baghdad yesterday, part of a wave of attacks that killed at least 21 Iraqis and wounded more than 70, authorities said.

A car bomb exploded near a busy market and cinema in eastern Baghdad today, killing at least 17 people and wounding 65, police said.

Two US Marines were killed and 14 wounded when an explosive device hit their troop transport vehicle during a large American offensive being fought against suspected insurgents in western Iraq, the military said today.

A STRING of bombings in Iraqi cities - including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body - killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 yesterday.

A string of bombings in Iraqi cities – including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body – killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 today as US troops pushed on in an offensive aimed at followers of Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist.

Using car bombs and a man with explosives strapped to his body, insurgents killed more than 60 people in three Iraqi cities today, police said.

US FORCES hunting down followers of Iraq’s most wanted terrorist pushed into a lawless region north of the Euphrates River near the Syrian border yesterday.