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Operation Elm Street... Just try and go to sleep...
Posted on 01/25/2005 11:15:10 PM PST by Former Military Chick
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fort Bragg paratroopers rounded up more than a dozen suspected insurgents Tuesday in a series of raids in central Baghdad.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers hit the streets just before 10 p.m.
With soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division surrounding the area, the paratroopers moved out on foot from their base on Haifa Street into the surrounding neighborhood. They called it "Operation Elm Street."
The objective was to detain all "military age" men - those from ages 18 to 45 - in seven houses suspected of harboring insurgents.
Soldiers from the 82nd's 325th Airborne Infantry have been at a base on Haifa Street for a few weeks. The area is known as one of the city's most dangerous for American soldiers and Iraqis, a place of homemade bombs, ambushes and executions of those suspected of collaboration with the occupation forces.
The soldiers in B Company of the 325th's 3rd Battalion have been trying to get the insurgents out of the neighborhood since they established a base in the area in December.
On Tuesday, two platoons from the company quickly moved through garbage-filled alleys between the mostly two-story buildings that make up the neighborhood.
The soldiers set up in front of the target houses exactly at 10 p.m. When the orders were given, the soldiers knocked on the gates of the homes. They gave the occupants a chance to answer, then kicked their way in.
Some of the iron gates gave the paratroopers a little trouble.
"It takes a good two minutes to kick in a door. It's not like the movies," Spc. Ryan Cannon said.
Inside the houses, the soldiers grabbed all of the men and walked them to a gathering area in one of the alleys. "You are trying to match faces with the list," Cannon said.
The paratroopers initially held more than 20 men, but Capt. Eric Massey, the B Company commander, let some of them go, including a blind man and several older men.
"I could have let a bad guy go, but I was just trying to use some common sense," he said.
No shots were fired in the raids, which took just over an hour.
Massey said the arrests made Tuesday could prevent attacks on elections sites. Iraqis will conduct their first democratic election Sunday, selecting an assembly to write a constitution and elect a president and prime minister.
"We may not have gotten all the guys, but it at least hurt their command and control of it," Massey said.
The detainees were taken to a 1st Cavalry Division base, where they will be questioned. Massey believes about half of the men captured are on lists of men wanted by the U.S. forces.
But they all have intelligence value, Massey said.
"They will get information from every one of them."
"They called it 'Operation Elm Street.'"
One, two, Freddy's coming for you
Three, four, better lock your door
Five, Six, grab your crucifix
Seven, Eight, better stay up late
Nine, Ten, Never sleep again...
Congrats to our boys and girls in uniform.
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