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Coalition launches offensive in western Iraq

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(CNN) -- Iraqi security forces and U.S. Marines have launched another offensive against insurgents in Anbar province, the Marines said Saturday.

About 600 troops -- 500 U.S. Marines and 100 Iraqi soldiers -- are taking part in Operation Scimitar, which began Thursday but was first announced Saturday.

The U.S. military said Marines detained 22 insurgents in Zaidon, a town about 18 miles (30 kilometers) south of the city of Falluja.

The operation is the sixth major offensive in Anbar in the past few months. The latest operation in western Iraq, dubbed Sword, went after insurgents between Haditha and Hit but focused on Hit, a 120,000-population city along the Euphrates River, about 100 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Scimitar is smaller in scale than previous operations, which usually involved about 1,000 troops.

Anbar province -- which stretches from just west of Baghdad to the Syrian, Jordan and Saudi Arabian borders -- is believed to be a major staging area for insurgents and foreign fighters, many of whom are thought to be Sunni Arabs.

The most-wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is believed to be in Anbar province.

Iraq condemns envoy's slaying

U.S. and Iraqi officials on Friday denounced the killing of Egypt's top diplomat to Iraq, and Iraq's Foreign Ministry urged other countries to not be deterred from establishing a presence in Baghdad.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani sent a message to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with a verse from the Quran and condolences over the killing of Ihab al-Sherif, who was kidnapped near his home July 2.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by al-Zarqawi, claimed on a Web site Thursday that it had abducted and killed al-Sherif, the first diplomat to represent an Arab country in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Talabani called the perpetrators "mercenary criminals" and "enemies of humanity."

The U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the "brutal murder."

It said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Abud Gheit and expressed our deepest sympathy and condolences to his family and colleagues as well as to the government and people of Egypt.

"Such attacks will not deter us from our commitment to assist the Iraqi people in their transition towards a peaceful and prosperous Iraq. We will continue to work with the Iraqi government and security officials to bring those responsible to justice and to eliminate the network behind them."

Other developments

Gunmen in southwestern Baghdad shot dead a police officer, Capt. Saad Muhsen Abdulamir, on Saturday morning. A bystander was also wounded.

Iraqi police said insurgents fired a mortar round at a refinery in southern Baghdad late Friday, causing a huge fire that lasted three hours.

A homemade bomb detonated in western Mosul on Saturday and wounded four civilians, the U.S. military said.

CNN's Cal Perry and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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