US launches major offensive as violence continues

ABOUT 1,000 US Marines, sailors and soldiers encircled the Iraqi city of Haditha in the troubled Anbar province early yesterday, launching the second major anti-insurgent operation in this vast western region in less than a month.

The offensives are aimed at uprooting insurgents who have killed more than 620 people since a new Iraqi government was announced on April 28.

Many of those insurgents are thought to be foreign fighters who have slipped across the border from Syria.