Airstrikes in Iraq as Coalition Forces Secure Border Area

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. Air Force jets destroyed a building near the Syrian border Wednesday where insurgents hid weapons, the U.S. military said.

The attack occurred early in the day in the village of Bu Hardan near the cities of Qaim and Husaybah where U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted a major operation in the past four days.

"The terrorists were seen moving mortars and other small weapons into the targeted building," the statement said. "This weapons cache was directly linked to mortar attacks on Coalition and Iraqi security forces."

The statement said the raid destroyed the building and "all contents of the weapons cache."

Late Tuesday, the military announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces have secured the town of Husaybah and that Al Qaeda-led insurgents there have been neutralized.

And the U.S. command announced that an American Marine had died of injuries received when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle Monday in western Iraq.

Meanwhile, a homicide bomber detonated his car Wednesday near a police patrol in Baquoba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing five policemen and wounding five others, officials said.

In Baghdad, a driver for the Sudanese Embassy was shot dead Wednesday as he left the Palestinian mission, police and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said.

The shooting occurred in the Mansour area of western Baghdad, where gunmen have attacked foreign diplomats and businessmen in the past. The driver was a Sudanese citizen, police and the ministry said.

Labeed Abbawi, an undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry, confirmed the report but did not know why the driver was at the Palestinian mission or whether he was the only person in the car.

The attack followed the abduction last month of two employees of the Moroccan Embassy, who were seized on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. Statements attributed to Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility and said the two had been sentenced to death.

Al Qaeda also claimed responsibility for the kidnap-slaying last July of three foreign diplomats — two Algerians and one Egyptian — as part of a campaign to cut ties between Muslim countries and the Shiite-dominated, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a minibus, killing its driver, police Capt. Qassim Hussein said. A roadside bomb in the southern neighborhood of Dora killed a motorist and wounded another man, police said.