US tightens grip on insurgent stronghold

THE US military launched a major combat operation yesterday as 1,000 US Marines and Iraqi soldiers fanned out to track down insurgents and foreign fighters in a volatile western province straddling Syria.

Operation Spear started in the pre-dawn hours in Anbar province, the military said. The area is where US forces said it killed about 40 militants in airstrikes in Karabilah on June 11.

The operation began a day after Air Force Brigadier General Don Alston called the Syrian border the “worst problem” in terms of stemming the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.