No other information about the deployment was available yesterday.

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 Hawai'i Marines with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment recently arrived in western Iraq, a region that includes the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi west of Baghdad, and extends to the Syrian border.

Marine Corps officials said the 1-3 Marines arrived about a week ago in Al Anbar province as part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Okinawa, after fine-tuning skills in the deserts of Kuwait.

About 900 Marines and sailors with 1-3 — as well as six CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters with Heavy Marine Helicopter squadron 463 and approximately 70 Marines from the squadron — deployed with the 31st MEU.

Eight Marines from other units have been killed in Al Anbar province this month, according to the Pentagon.

The 1-3 Marines have suffered a loss of their own: Lance Cpl. Richard P. Slocum, 19, of Saugus, Calif., died Sunday near Abu Ghraib in a non-combat related vehicle accident.

Lance Cpl. Jeffrey B. Owens, 21, a supply clerk and native of Harlan, Ky., is recovering at Camp Fallujah after being wounded in a rocket attack on the base, and 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Matthew J. Oliver, a communications wireman, was injured in a mortar attack.

Carol Armstead, whose husband, John, 39, is the first sergeant of 1-3's headquarters and service company, said about Slocum's death: "That's when it hit home that they are in danger. We're just praying for all of them to get back home."

Although they have been in Iraq for only a week, Hawai'i Marines have been involved in a firefight in Fallujah.

The New York Times reported that offensive operations to retake Fallujah and Ramadi from militants could be only weeks away, and would be the largest and potentially riskiest since the end of major combat was declared in May.

U.S. airstrikes in three neighborhoods of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, have increased, and residents reported this week that Marines appeared to be reinforcing forward positions near key areas of the city. The goal of an attack would be to restore government control ahead of January's national elections.

Meanwhile, on Iraq's 400-mile border with Syria to the west, Marines have clashed with insurgents, taken mortar fire

and had to deal with roadside bombs. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is the higher headquarters responsible for western Iraq.

Families in Hawai'i sent off the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines in early July thinking they were on a regular seven-month deployment to Okinawa. The three infantry battalions at Kane'ohe Bay take turns rotating to the Japanese island.

"The next thing you know, we get word they are leaving and may be going to Iraq. And now that they are in Iraq, it's a real scary thing," Armstead said.

Her husband was in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991, and the couple has a 21-year-old son in the Marines in electrician school in North Carolina.

"So I'm concerned about that, also," she said.

About 160 Marines with the 3rd Radio Battalion at Kane'ohe Bay who are communications and electronic warfare specialists deployed to Iraq early this year and operated in Fallujah and Ramadi. Last year, 250 of the radio battalion Marines deployed to Kuwait and Iraq.

The Hawai'i Marine deployments are still not as large as in 1991, when about 7,600 Kane'ohe Marines were deployed during Operation Desert Storm. Hawai'i Marines with Task Force Taro were the first to cross the mined Kuwait-Iraqi border.

A typical Marine Expeditionary Unit includes about 2,200 Marines and sailors in command, ground combat, aviation combat, and support elements and embarks on three to four ships. The 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment troops are the battalion landing team for the 31st MEU. Landing teams are reinforced with artillery, amphibious assault vehicles, combat engineers, an anti-armor section and light armored vehicles.