Iraq Watch: August 30, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fierce fighting broke out on Tuesday in Iraq's western al-Anbar province, near the Syrian border. The clashes were believed to be between two rival Sunni klans, the pro-government Bumahl tribe and the pro-insurgent Karabilah tribe, in the area. Sporadic clashes between the two Sunni tribes have occurred in the past.

U.S. forces, after receiving tips from local members of the Bumahl tribe, called in airstrikes on multiple suspected insurgent safe houses in the region on Tuesday.

Casualty figures from the clashes and airstrikes varied drastically. The U.S. military said the airstrikes killed an unknown number of 'terroriosts' including purported al-Qaida in Iraq fighter Abu Islam. However, Iraqi police reported that at least 56 people - mostly civilians - were killed in the strikes.

The Washington Post reports that members al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted statements on local mosques in the area announcing they had lost 17 men in the fighting.

In other violence on Tuesday, the chief of police for the capital's Ghazaliya district, Diya Hilal Taha, was killed and three of his bodyguards were wounded when insurgents opened fire on them in the western Baghdad.

Elsewhere, Mohammad Rashad, a senior security official with the Iraqi oil protection force, was killed early this morning by gunmen in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

In Samarra, 60 miles west of the capital, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle next to an Iraqi police patrol killing at least two officers.