BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fourteen U.S. Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed Wednesday in western Iraq, the U.S. military command in Iraq said. The Pentagon, meanwhile, denied an insurgent group's claim that it had captured a Marine in the same area.
The 14 Marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed just outside Haditha when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, the military said. One Marine was wounded.
Haditha is 140 miles northwest of Baghdad and along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.
The Marines were in an amphibious assault vehicle, which are used in Iraq to cross bodies of water like the Euphrates....