Aided by Iraqis, U.S. Seizes Part of Rebel Town

NY Times ^ | 10/02/04 | RICK LYMAN and DEXTER FILKINS

[Valin]

SAMARRA, Iraq, Oct. 1 - American and Iraqi forces battled their way into the center of this insurgent-ridden city on Friday, claiming that they had taken control of more than half the town and that they had killed more than 100 guerrillas, in what is shaping up to be one of the largest military operations since the war began.

More than 5,000 troops, including 3,000 Americans, attacked the city from three sides early on Friday, seizing the main government buildings and a pharmaceutical factory on the city's northwest end. Iraqi forces also took control of the Golden Mosque, a Shiite holy site visited annually by thousands of pilgrims, thereby staving off a repeat of the siege of Najaf, where insurgents commandeered the Imam Ali Shrine to draw out the fighting there.

The assault here represented the first major effort by American and Iraqi forces to reclaim a series of regions that have fallen into the hands of insurgents before the nationwide elections that are scheduled to take place in January. American officials have said they plan to retake the regions in time to allow the Iraqis to vote, and that their toughest challenges still lie ahead in places like Falluja and Ramadi.

In Samarra, American commanders decided to move in three weeks after a deal that had allowed Iraqi government officials to reassert control in the city fell apart before insurgent attacks. At the time of the deal, announced Sept. 9, and even more recently, Bush administration officials in Washington were citing it as a success story for their Iraq policy.

The new assault came after growing concern among American intelligence officers that the insurgents in Samarra had begun to cooperate with their comrades in Falluja, the heart of the Iraqi insurgency where Reuters reported a strike by an American warplane on Friday night killed at least three people, including a child. The news agency said 12 others were wounded. In Samarra, the American military said that one soldier, a member of the First Infantry Division, had been killed in the fighting on Friday and that four others had been wounded. In addition to the 100 Iraqis the Americans said they had killed, 37 others were taken prisoner, they said. American and Iraqi officials said they planned to flush the insurgents from the city, which had fallen under their control in recent months, re-establish government authority and then pull the American troops back once calm returned. Iraqi troops and police would then be charged with maintaining control.

In an appearance in Baghdad, Qassim Daoud, the Iraqi national security adviser, struck a combative chord, promising more military operations in the Sunni Triangle. "We will spare no effort to clean all the Iraqi lands and cities from these criminals, and we will pave the way through these operations not only for reconstruction but also for the general election," Mr. Daoud said.

Mr. Daoud said the operation followed a meeting on Sunday in Baghdad of about 110 of Samarra's sheiks and city leaders, who, he said, had asked the government to get rid of the insurgents. He conceded that plans for the military operation were under way by the time of the meeting. "Even if the citizens did not ask us, we would have gone in to clean it," he said.

The fight for Samarra marks the largest operation in which American forces have gone into battle alongside Iraqi soldiers. The strategy represents something of a risk both for the American military and the Iraqi government. In April, the Iraqi security forces largely disintegrated before uprisings in central and southern Iraq. From an American standpoint, the Iraqi soldiers, even if they do not do the bulk of the fighting, provide critical political cover that allows the operations to go forward.

The benefits of the joint strategy were instantly apparent, when a group of Iraqi soldiers took control of the Golden Mosque, a place where the presence of American soldiers would be sure to cause consternation among the locals. Iraqi soldiers searched at least one other mosque in the town.

As the operation unfolded, the Americans sealed off the roads leading into the city, cut the telephone lines and at least some of the electricity. That made it impossible, at least for now, to judge the reaction of Iraqis inside Samarra to the attack. The house-to-house searching resulted in a few hasty skirmishes, and uncovered a few small arms caches - including several mortar rounds that were detonated. Explosions and bursts of gunfire echoed throughout the city for much of the day. But there appeared to be few pitched battles, as the insurgents seemed to melt away before the superior force.

Some of the American officers who led patrols through the city on Friday seemed to sense that the guerrillas would return. "The bad guys are just pulling back to see what we're going to do," said Lt. Jonathan Martin, the executive officer of one of the companies conducting the house-to-house search. "Our guess is, this battle is going to get pretty rough and will probably last a long time."

One by one, the houses in the Jebera neighborhood in the southeastern edge of the city were kicked open - and sometimes shotgunned open - at one point revealing a bewildered wedding party that had not noticed that American forces were overrunning the neighborhood. Mostly, though, the houses were empty, and showed signs of a hasty departure.

In one home, a group of American soldiers made a surprising discovery: Yaltchin Kaya, a Turkish truck driver kidnapped about two weeks ago by insurgents. The Americans found him when they snapped the padlock on a stifling room. He had worked for KBR, the American military contractor. "Chalk one up for the good guys," said Specialist Jess Escamillas of the Army.

In the effort to meld American and Iraqi units together, some irritations appear to have developed. As an American platoon led a line of Iraqi soldiers through a Samarra neighborhood on Friday morning, clinging to the outside walls of the homes to thwart potential snipers, one Iraqi soldier blithely strolled down the middle of the street. "Hey, dummy, get out of the road," a sergeant shouted from a passing Humvee.

As two Iraqi soldiers played duelists with a pair of swords they had found in one of the abandoned houses, a lieutenant quietly berated their commander for the looting and for the potentially dangerous tomfoolery: "You better tell those boys to cut down on the swordplay."

A Humvee carrying Specialist Escamillas - whose platoon nickname is Skull - also carried Lieutenant Martin through the city. Riding in the machine-gun turret was Sgt. Travis Glass, whom the lieutenant called Sunglasses, while Pvt. Gregory Echevarria of Brooklyn sat in the back, inevitably nicknamed Big Apple.

Skull pulled on an icy bottle of Gatorade, but it was doing little to cut the fierce heat, stifling and miserable at well over 100 degrees by 10 a.m. and unrelenting until well after sunset, when the temperature plummeted to the high 60's. "This heat, man you can't get away from it," Skull said. "Your uniform always looks like you just pulled it out of the washer, sopping wet."

Up in the turret, Sunglasses wheeled around and shouted that he had spotted a man in one of the upstairs windows of the houses. He shouted to a soldier guarding the house whether he knew about the man. "Yeah, yeah, take it easy," the soldier shouted back. "You can't shoot 'em all, you know."

Up one street and down the other, the Humvee picked its slow, deliberate way through the neighborhood, following the infantry as they kicked down doors. In one empty lot, a forlorn mule munched disconsolately on debris. A disabled big-rig truck sat at curbside, its windshield pocked with automatic-weapons fire. Blossoms of black smoke rose in thick plumes above the distant rooflines to the occasional thud, thud, thud of mortar fire and tank rounds and the chattering of gunfire.

"Did you hear that?" Big Apple asked about something that had just squawked over the radio. "They got a mortar mounted on the back of a pickup truck."

Skull shook his head. "They are a resourceful people," he said.

"And sometimes crazy," Sunglasses added.

"A very crazy country," the lieutenant concurred.

An old man opened the gate to his compound and led about a dozen dusty goats out onto the road. Suddenly, up ahead, two infantrymen stopped a car and demanded that the occupants get out to be searched. A dozen people emerged from the front seat, back seat and trunk, all raising their hands to be patted down.

Suddenly, one of the infantrymen fired two long bursts at a distant car that was not heeding warnings to slow down. The car stopped, turned and left the area as the old shepherd, startled by the gunfire, raised his staff, turned his herd and led them back into the cool of his hidden compound.

[Jeff Head]

I'd prefer to see the radical strongholds taken back THIS WAY.

Just my opinion.

[oolatec]

They rescued that one Turkish hostage? Wow, I didn't hear that... good!

[Rokke]

Ignore the NYT bias and read between the lines for some interesting information.

[Ostlandr]

Bump!

BTW, I will check out your website. Looks like Tom Clancy and Dale Brown better start watching their tailfeathers!

To all the Freepers in favor of "total war" I can live with the method outlined in Jeff Head's Post. Evacuate the noncombatants, and anyone who wants to surrender, THEN flatten the place.

[Jeff Head]

Here's another excerpt regarding the same type of thing:

Death of an Uprising.

Both of the two excerpts here are from Volume V in my series...well after the tide turns in the stroyline (5-6 years after the onset of hostilities). We go through some horrific experiences in that fictional tale getting to that point.

Thanks for the kind words and best fregards to you!

[elfman2]

Two good reports...

"One by one, the houses in the Jebera neighborhood in the southeastern edge of the city were kicked open - and sometimes shotgunned open - at one point revealing a bewildered wedding party that had not noticed that American forces were overrunning the neighborhood. "

Everybody must be marrying each other. Never have there been more wedding party attacks.

[Avenger]

Actually I didn't think it was too bad for the NYT. The other day I was looking over the shoulder of someone reading the LA Times. I swear to you it was almost like I was reading Al Jezeera. Unbelievable.

[datura]

Hey Jeff - have you ever read that book excerpt from "The Assault on Grozny" written by Vyachslav Mironov? It's a long read, but I think you'd enjoy the comparison between our forces and theirs - and how they dealt with their Islamic vermin. (For instance they would routinely take their prisoners, place a noose around their necks, and tie each of them to the end of a T-72 barrel. I'd continue but I don't want to spoil the fun.)

The article is located here.

[EGPWS]

American and Iraqi forces battled their way into the center of this insurgent-ridden city on Friday, claiming that they had taken control of more than half the town and that they had killed more than 100 guerrillas, in what is shaping up to be one of the largest military operations since the war began.

John Kerry has convinced me that this is a worthless but political election year ploy that will just help to prevent the election of him in the '04 elections and it must stop!

Is this true?

[neverdem]

Ashley Gilbertson for the New York Times
Taking a break Friday during an operation in Samarra, American soldiers tried to cool off in stifling heat in a home that they had just occupied.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
The U.S. military said today that American and Iraqi forces had succeeded in securing government and police buildings.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Soldiers from the First Infantry Division prepared a command post early Friday during a major offensive on the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Samarra. More than 4,000 American and Iraqi soldiers launched a military assault on Samarra, Iraq on Thursday night.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
The operation appeared intended to retake areas from guerillas before the January election in Iraq.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Four battalions of American troops, backed by two battalions of Iraqi troops, began moving toward the city Thursday night under the cover of heavy fire.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
According to news reports, Samarra was fast becoming a haven for insurgents, both foreign and Iraqi, much like Falluja.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
As the operation got under way, American commanders said they aimed to take the city away from the insurgents and hold onto it.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
A statement released by the American military said that "unimpeded access throughout the city for Iraqi security forces and multinational forces is non-negotiable."

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
As U.S. soliders entered a house that was hosting a wedding party, the head of the household pleaded with them to let his guests return home, saying there was not enough room for them to stay for the next two or three nights as the soldiers requested.

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Iraqi and American officials have said they intend to reassert control over all of the areas that have slipped from their control, so that voting will be open to nearly all Iraqi voters.

[kim r.]

thanks for the pics

[neverdem]

Check the thread one more time. I posted the pics from the article.