Posted on 06/22/2007 5:27:08 AM PDT by 300magnum
BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of U.S. soldiers on the offensive north of Baghdad are facing fierce resistance from hundreds of al Qaeda militants who are ready to fight to the death, an American general said on Friday.
"It is house to house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer," said Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general, operations, 25th Infantry Division.
Al Qaeda militants were making their stand in and around the Iraqi city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, where the U.S. military on Tuesday launched one of its biggest operations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
U.S. officials accuse Sunni Islamist al Qaeda of using car bombings and other violence to try to tip Iraq into full-scale sectarian civil war. A suicide truck bomb blamed on al Qaeda killed 87 people outside a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday.
Bednarek estimated several hundred al Qaeda militants were at Baquba and it would be a long and dangerous job for U.S. forces to flush them out.
"They will not go any further. They will fight to the death," Bednarek told Reuters and another news agency.
"There have been houses that were used by al Qaeda as safe houses ... their entire structures rigged with massive explosives."
Baquba is the capital of Diyala province. The region has long been an al Qaeda hotbed, but attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have soared here since a four-month-old U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad and operations elsewhere prompted many al Qaeda militants and other gunmen to seek sanctuary in Diyala.
The campaign, dubbed Operation Arrowhead Ripper, is part of a broader offensive involving tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers pushing on with simultaneous operations in Baghdad, and to the south and west of the capital.
Tough fighting is expected over the next 45-60 days, U.S. military officials have said, sketching a rough timeline for the combined operations.
TORTURE HOUSE
Bednarek said U.S. forces were making some grisly discoveries as they scoured Baquba. He said residents led soldiers to a house in the western part of the city that appeared to have been used to hold, torment and kill hostages. Soldiers destroyed it.
"When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal," Bednarek said.
U.S. military commanders have said the combined operations were taking advantage of the completion of a build-up of American forces in Iraq to 156,000 soldiers.
President George W. Bush has sent 28,000 extra troops mainly to Baghdad to help curb sectarian bloodshed and buy time for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to reach a political accommodation with disaffected minority Sunni Arabs, who are locked in a cycle of violence with majority Shi'ite Muslims.
Diyala is a stronghold of al Qaeda but it also has significant Shi'ite and Kurdish populations.
The U.S. military says it has killed 41 militants in the Diyala operation. U.S. casualties have been light so far, given the scope of the offensive, with one soldier killed, although in Baghdad roadside bombs are exacting a heavy toll.
Bednarek said the fight against al Qaeda in Diyala also involved local Sunnis Arabs who opposed the United States but who wanted to end al Qaeda domination of their communities.
He said this included fighters from the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a large Sunni Arab insurgent group that has fallen out with al Qaeda over its indiscriminate killing of civilians.
His forces were only providing logistical support, he said.
American military commanders have increasingly begun arming and equipping Sunni Arab tribes to fight al Qaeda under a model first used in volatile western Anbar province.
It's normal for Al Quaeda.
I hope that Death comes quickly to the Al Qaeda, they deserve it.
Good - we want them to fight to the death - not slink away to fight another day.
Fine.
Bomb them. Then search house to house. Don’t put our shooters in the same position as AQ, that is leveling the field of battle.
Good.
Make those dumb bas##rds die for their cause.
Was that a promise this time or are they gunna talk big again and hide behind women and children before they run like pigs?
Wait, you mean there are members of Al Qaeda actually in Iraq?!?!?!? The hell you say.....</sarcasm>
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Dem war logic:
We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq because Al Qaeda wasn’t there AND we should pull out immediately because Al Qadea is there now.
“When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal,” Bednarek said.
Making our troops fight house to house with explosives set, is nuts. We make bombs for that stuff.
Our brave warriors should not be exposed like this. Let Bush and Gates go block by block over there.
Senator Reid is in a sweat. Reid already said we lost so he cannot afford a win for America.
Wonder just how far Harry Reid will go to make sure he is not wrong..............
On another subject; wonder how much money his three sons & son in law lobbyists raked in yesterday for their dinner time influence of the Senate Majority Leader........
“Jim, the Klingons are dying” - Spock
“Let them die” - Kirk
These Al Quaeda monsters are no different than the Nazis....they all need to be destroyed...
flame throwers are particularly useful in a situation like this...
Where are all the Reuters Bashers?
This is a good report.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
8 posted on 06/22/2007 5:38:33 AM PDT by bray (The co-clintons freed more bombers then they caught)
I pray for the troops and especially one in particular. I will never again pray for w.
The surge should have been started in Jan 2006 but w let rummy do nothing.
Why haven't we sealed the border with Syria and Iran?
Why does w think illegal mexicans are important enough to go to the hill and twist arms but when he wanted money for the troops by April 15, he stayed in the Whitehouse.
w no longer gets my prayers, money, or support. He is willing to damn my children to high taxes to pay for his buddys' cheap labor and to drag our middle class down to poverty level.
No prayers for w!
lol.
Every time I read stories like this, I think how can anyone believe that we are fighting in the wrong place, that Iraq wasn’t a terrorist harboring nation, and that the WOT is merely a bumper sticker slogan.
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