July 19, 2009

BAGHDAD — An American Marine was killed in western Iraq on Sunday, the United States military said.

The military provided few details about the death, saying only in a statement that it was a "combat-related incident as a result of enemy action" in Anbar Province.

Anbar Province was for years considered the seat of the insurgency and among Iraq’s most violent areas. But after former insurgents, lured by steady paychecks and disenchanted with Sunni extremist groups, joined the government-allied Awakening Councils there two years ago, the province became significantly more peaceful.

In recent months however, violence has increased in Falluja, one of Anbar’s main cities and once a center of insurgent activity.

The American military did not identify the Marine or disclose where in Anbar he had died.

Also Sunday, two Katyusha rockets hit Camp Echo, a United States base in Diwaniya Province in southern Iraq, according to Iraqi security officials.

The United States military did not immediately confirm the attack late Sunday evening, and it was not clear whether there were any injuries.

The rocket attack comes three days after Katyusha rockets killed three American soldiers at another military base in southern Iraq.

Last week, two men arrested by Iraqi security forces said they had been among a group of people recently trained in Iran to fire Katyusha rockets and to plant homemade bombs. The men, who possessed several rockets and a rocket launcher, also had a list of targets and maps, according to an Iraqi security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.

In the northern city of Mosul, two Iraqi policemen were shot dead by snipers on Sunday, and in Baghdad, an Iraqi Army soldier was also killed by a sniper, according to the Iraqi police.

In Abu Ghraib, a western suburb of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi Army patrol, killing one soldier and wounding three others. Two Iraqi policemen were also wounded in the attack, which occurred near a security checkpoint.

In Madaen, about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad, Mahmoud Abdullah, an Awakening Council leader, was killed and at least one of his bodyguards was wounded after a bomb attached to his vehicle was detonated, security officials said.

Duraid Adnan and Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting.