U.S. Has Suspects in Killings of 6 Marines

<>USA Today | August 10, 2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. and Iraqi forces have apprehended several suspects in the killings of six Marine snipers last week, the Pentagon's top general said Tuesday.

Iraqi civilians in the area where the Marines were killed pointed out the suspects, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"They're in interrogation right now," Myers told a Pentagon news conference.

He said they were apprehended in the Hadithah area when U.S. and Iraqi forces went there after an explosion killed 14 Marines on Aug. 3. That attack came two days after the snipers were killed by small-arms fire. Myers did not give more details about the suspects.

A statement from Marine spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool said Tuesday that 27 "suspected terrorists" had been captured in the area during the past week. It was not clear whether any were involved in killing the snipers.

The normal procedure when U.S. troops capture suspects is to gather evidence and build a case. The suspects are then turned over to Iraqi criminal courts for trial. Commanders of the units holding the suspects will make the decision on how to proceed in this case, said Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman.

The snipers' killings were part of a flare of fighting in western Iraq last week that left 21 Marines dead, including 19 from one Marine Reserve battalion based in Ohio. Forty-one Marines from the battalion have been killed since the unit arrived in February.

U.S. and Iraqi troops in the area are working to clear out insurgents from their supply lines along the Euphrates River. Hadithah lies along the river near the intersection of three major highways.

Insurgents in the area are constantly on the move, said Maj. Bob Schubert, a Marine intelligence officer. "You can't really pin down the enemy," said Schubert, 35, of Washington.

Myers said the military believes the explosion that killed 14 Marines in an amphibious assault vehicle last week was caused by a bomb made up of three mines wired together and planted in the road.

"There was no way out of the vehicle once it overturned," Myers said.

Such deadly attacks will continue, Myers said. "There is no perfect defense, in this country, in Iraq, anywhere in the world, against people that are bent on doing those kinds of acts," Myers said.

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