Oct. 30, 2004, NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Eight U.S. Marines were killed and nine others wounded in action Saturday in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced.

The statement gave no details of how they were killed or injured and did not say where the engagement took place, citing security.

They were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Anbar province includes Fallujah, where the U.S. military is gearing up for a major offensive, as well as Ramadi and Qaim along the Syrian border.

Ahead of the projected assault, U.S. forces launched airstrikes against suspected militant bases in Fallujah earlier on Saturday and carried out probing attacks on the city’s outskirts.

U.S. planners believe many of Fallujah’s 300,000 residents have already fled the city, where militants last spring ambushed and killed four American contractors, mutilated their bodies and hung them from a bridge.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities want to curb the increasingly violent Sunni Muslim insurgency in order to hold nationwide elections by Jan. 31. Up to 5,000 Islamic militants, Saddam Hussein loyalists and common criminals are hunkered down in Fallujah, U.S. officers said Friday.

Meantime, the U.S. military said Saturday that an American soldier was killed by a suicide car bomber in the nearby city of Ramadi.

A military spokesman said the attack on a U.S. army convoy occurred Friday.

Car bomb explodes near TV station

In a separate attack, a car bomb exploded outside the offices of the Al-Arabiya television station in central Baghdad on Saturday, injuring 16 people, police said.

The blast went off near the Dubai-based network’s building in the western Mansour neighborhood of the capital, Police Brig. Gen. Sami al-Saadoun said.

Network correspondent Najwa Qassem said she saw at least six or seven people wounded, including two seriously. Most of the injured were technicians and drivers, she said. Police said bystanders were also hurt in the blast.

She said the blast seriously damaged the network’s building, including its broadcast room.

A fire erupted in the building, she said, as sirens could be heard in the background. A giant crater was seen where the bomb exploded.

Qassem said she could not conclude for sure that the attack specifically targeted the network’s offices. The Mansour area has several government offices as well as homes of two senior officials, including Adnan Pachachi, former member of the Iraqi Governing Council and Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the blast.

'We'll whack them'

American officials stress that the final order to launch a big operation would come from Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has warned Fallujah to hand over followers of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or face attack.

Allawi has issued no such order, but preparations are clearly under way, including the movement of British soldiers into areas close to Baghdad so that American forces can be redeployed for a showdown.

"We’re gearing up to do an operation and when were told to go we’ll go," Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said at a camp near Fallujah. "When we do go, we’ll whack them."

Police convoy fired upon

On Saturday, gunmen fired on a police convoy just outside Baghdad, causing one of the vehicles to burst into flames, police said. Witnesses said they saw three policemen trapped inside the burning vehicle, but officials did not give a casualty toll.

Also, a U.S. military patrol came under gunfire when it stopped to aid Iraqis hit by a roadside bomb, the U.S. command said Saturday.

The bomb detonated Friday evening, injuring three civilians, and a U.S. patrol in the area stopped to give aid and came under attack by small arms fire, the U.S. military said. Two more Iraqi civilians were wounded in the firefight. No American soldiers were wounded.

Frequent airstrikes

Meanwhile, Marines have been hitting Fallujah with frequent airstrikes, targeting buildings believed used by al-Zarqawi’s followers. Marines have also launched probing attacks into Fallujah’s outskirts to test insurgent defenses, Marine Col. Mike Shupp said.

A U.S. warplane fired at a house in the eastern Askari district of Fallujah around sundown Friday, witnesses said. Firefighter Salam Hameed said five bodies were pulled from under the rubble. Another four people were injured.

Iraqi public outrage over reports of civilian casualties pressured the Marines into calling off their planned siege of Fallujah last April — a move that strengthened the insurgents’ hold on the Sunni city 40 miles west of Baghdad and likely contributed to the dramatic deterioration of security in the capital itself.

On Friday, a Sunni cleric in Baghdad, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, warned the Americans and Iraqis against launching a full-scale attack on Fallujah. If they do, he said Sunni clerics in the capital will issue a fatwa, or a binding religious decree, ordering Muslims to launch street protests and a campaign of civil disobedience.

The United States has offered a $25 million reward for the capture of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist who announced his allegiance to al-Qaida on the Internet this month. Al-Zarqawi’s movement is responsible for numerous car bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages, including three Americans.

However, U.S. officials acknowledge that even if they kill or capture al-Zarqawi, the insurgency is likely to continue.

Nevertheless, re-establishing control in Fallujah would cut vital links among insurgent groups and affect their ability to plan and carry out attacks, particularly in Baghdad.

In other developments:

* Kidnappers released a 7-year-old Lebanese boy a week after they grabbed him as he was walking home from school.
*Two car bombs exploded in the northern city of Mosul, killing an Iraqi civilian and slightly wounding five U.S. soldiers, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
* U.S. troops detained a Croat truck driver in Iraq. The U.S. Embassy in Croatia said Damir Mikulic was being held at Camp Bucca, near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq, for filming U.S. military bases and training exercises. His video camera allegedly held more than eight hours of sensitive footage.
* Aqil Hamid al-Adili, an assistant to the governor of Diyala province, was killed by gunmen as he was sitting in a friend’s office, police said. Al-Adili had warned of insurgent infiltration in Iraqi forces after 50 U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers were killed last weekend.
* An American contract worker from Columbus, Ga., was killed Wednesday in a car bomb attack, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. Travis Schnoor, 39, died when his vehicle flipped over after hitting an explosive device, the report said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

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