Nine US Marines have been killed and nine others wounded in action Saturday in the restive western Al-Anbar Province in Iraq, the US military said in a statement.  

The attack on US forces was the deadliest in nearly nine months.

The marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed and wounded while conducting increased security operations in the province, said the statement, without providing further details.

The western Anbar Province, including Ramadi, some 100 km west of Baghdad, has long been a hotbed of insurgency against the US forces since last year's US-led war on Iraq.  

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2004)