Краткое содержание - атаковавших было около 100. Это баасисты (т.е не шииты). Атаковали блокпост около губернаторского дворца. В ходе боя повреждены Брэдли и Абрамс. Помимо убитых у маринов около 20 раненых.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As many as a dozen U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday in heavy fighting in the western Iraq town of Ramadi, the latest in a series of clashes with anti-coalition elements, Pentagon officials said.
The large-scale attack was mounted by suspected remnants of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, officials said.
A high-ranking military source said initial reports indicated several government buildings had been seized by fewer than 100 insurgents.
The insurgents attacked a Marine position near the governor's palace.
The source said as many as 20 Marines were wounded. There also were heavy Iraqi casualties
The fighting was so intense that a Bradley fighting vehicle and an Abrams M1-A1 tank were damaged, U.S. sources said.
Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, is part of the Sunni triangle, an area north and west of the capital where much of the resistance to the U.S.-led occupation has occurred.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force recently took over from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in the region, which includes the area extending to the border with Syria.
One Pentagon official described the region as "the badlands."
East of Ramadi, heavy fighting was reported in the Sunni enclave of Fallujah as Marines and Iraqi security forces were reasserting control after the killing and mutilation of four civilian security guards last week.
And in Baghdad and at least four cities in the country's south, U.S. and coalition troops battled supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for a third day.
The Marine deaths in Ramadi and that of a soldier in a Baghdad rocket-propelled grenade attack made Tuesday one of the deadliest days for American troops in Iraq since President Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1.
