October 16, 2003

A group of ship-borne Marines has gone ashore in southern Iraq to assist in an anti-smuggling operation that already has seized dozens of barges and oil tankers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.
Air Force Gen. Gen. Richard Myers said Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit operating from the amphibious assault ship Peleliu in the Persian Gulf have gone ashore, but he provided few details.

Other Marine units played a major role in both the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the initial months of the U.S. occupation, but the last of those Marines departed the country in September.

Myers also provided the first public confirmation that U.S. forces captured Aso Hawleri, a leading figure in the Kurdish-Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam, which U.S. officials say has ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Myers said Hawleri was captured near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, but he did not say when or provide other details of the arrest.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Myers said the U.S.-led coalition recently began “Operation Sweeney,” designed to prevent smuggling in southern Iraq.

“To date, we have arrested about 75 individuals, seized 20 full barges, 15 empty barges, eight oil boats, 36 petroleum tankers and nine pickup trucks containing fuel and 10 fuel pumps,” Myers said.

“As part of this effort, Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit operating from the USS Peleliu have gone ashore in Iraq to assist in this operation,” he added.

Myers did not say how many Marine went ashore. Normally the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., has about 2,200 Marines and about 2,000 sailors aboard.

By Robert Burns
Associated Press