Forces hit insurgent camp - NYT

[jatx]

March 23, 2005
Iraqi and U.S. Forces Raid Insurgent Camp, Killing Dozens
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 - Iraqi and American forces killed up to 80 insurgents Tuesday in a fierce battle during a morning raid on what appeared to be the largest guerilla training camp to be discovered in the war, American and Iraqi officials said today. Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and six were wounded.

The number of fighters killed was the most reported in a single battle since the American invasion of the city of Falluja, an insurgent stronghold, last November. The size and location of the camp, with scores of guerrillas living in tents and small buildings in a marshy lakeside encampment in western Iraq, revealed a new strategy among the insurgents, American military officials contended. It is the first time the military has come across insurgents organizing in such numbers in a remote rural location, similar to Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, the officials said.

"A year ago, they preferred to organize in small cells in urban areas," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, which sent soldiers and attack helicopters to aid the hundreds of Iraqi commandos who raided the camp. "Here, they organized into a large group in a remote site, perhaps under the impression that coalition forces wouldn't look for them there."

Along with munitions, training manuals and suicide bomb vests, the Iraqi and American forces discovered identification papers that showed some of the fighters had come from outside Iraq, said Major Goldenberg. He declined to identify the nationalities of the foreign insurgents, though Iraqi officials said they came from Arab countries.

Gen. Flaiyeh Rashid, the head of the police commandos in Salahuddin Province, where the battle took place, said on a state-run television network that the fighting lasted for seven hours and that American and Iraqi forces killed 80 guerrillas. Major Goldenberg said the American military estimated that the battle took two hours and that there were about 80 insurgents at the camp, but he could not give a count of how many were killed. The major said no prisoners were taken during the assault.

The fighting came just two days after an American convoy fended off a highly organized ambush by a band of 40 to 50 insurgents on the outskirts of Baghdad. The American military said 26 attackers were killed in that battle, on Sunday in the town of Salman Pak, 12 miles southeast of the capital. It was the most ambitious assault against the American military since the Jan. 30 elections, and showed that the guerrilla war was still burning fiercely here two years after the Americans invaded Iraq and despite the high voter turnout in the elections.

The battle on Tuesday began at about 11 a.m., as members of the Interior Ministry's First Police Commando Battalion, acting on tips from residents of the area, approached the guerrilla camp by Lake Tharthar, Major Goldenberg said. Before the American invasion, the large lake was a popular tourist spot for Iraqis and was the site of a fish farming project begun by the government of Saddam Hussein. It lies in a barren, arid region 100 miles northwest of Baghdad and straddles the border between Anbar and Salahuddin Provinces, both insurgent strongholds dominated by the former governing Sunni Arabs.

As the commandos neared the camp, guerrillas began firing with assault rifles, machine guns and mortars or rockets. "This was a remote site," Major Goldenberg said. "It was quite likely they could see the approach of other forces from a distance."

The Iraqi police then called for support from the 42nd Infantry Division, based out of a palace complex in the nearby provincial capital of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The Americans sent in Apache attack helicopters and smaller OH-58D Kiowa helicopters, as well as ground troops. An Interior Ministry spokesman said some insurgents tried escaping by boat across the lake, but were killed on the water or as they disembarked on the far shore.

The training camp was so extensive that American and Iraqi troops were still searching it today, Major Goldenberg said. Among the items seized were manuals with "techniques they would have used to train other insurgents to conduct operations," he said, declining to go into details. The 42nd Infantry Division, charged with securing the northern Sunni triangle, has never "come across such an organized facility for the Iraqi insurgent elements," the major said. Iraqi and American troops burned four vehicles found at the camp, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

He estimated that 500 to 700 Iraqi commandos took part in the assault. The same unit has been working alongside the 42nd Infantry Division and was involved in a brief offensive sweep earlier this month in the volatile town of Samarra. In that operation, Iraqi commandos and American soldiers blocked off sections of Samarra to arrest suspected insurgent leaders, but found that the leaders had gone into hiding or fled.

Officers of the 42nd Infantry Division have been training Iraqi security forces at its palace headquarters on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River in Tikrit. The training has been taking place on an island in the middle of the river, and experienced Iraqi officers are increasingly doing some of the teaching, American commanders say. The use of Iraqi forces as the spearhead for an ambitious assault like the one on Tuesday "reflects the trend we expect to see for the rest of the year," Major Goldenberg said.

Today, violence flared in the capital, as an insurgent mortar attack killed an Iraqi girl and wounded another child at a primary school in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. The mortar crashed into a school in the Amariya neighborhood, an area rife with insurgents between downtown Baghdad and Abu Ghraib prison. Two insurgents also tried to set off a suicide car bomb in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya, the officials said, but wounded only themselves as they failed to detonate the explosives properly.

[Team Sergeant]

"no prisoners were taken during the assault"

What a wonderful way to start the day! I like good news.

(Sorry to hear seven Iraqi police officers that died in the battle.)

TS

[The Reaper]

No fire support plan?

Unless this was some sort of confidence target, I have to wonder why the friendlies didn't just pull up when they started taking fire and let arty/air level the place?

Much easier and safer to just do the BDA then.

Good news (minus the casualties), nonetheless.

TR

[jatx]

Sounds like the Iraqi police were chomping at the bit!

[jbour13]

More positive stuff coming out of the sandbox these days. I'm loving it !

I guess that's why our bestest buddies (I'm kidding of course) Ted and Johnnie boy haven't been "chomping at the bit" lately. I guess when you're a loser it sucks even more to have salt poured into your wounds by those that created them.

[Sacamuelas]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4374533.stm

hmm... 70 arrested and 80 killed in two separate actions on the same day. It does sound like the intelligence operations are starting to get better.

[NousDefionsDoc]

"We cannot defeat the insurgents militarily if we fail to effectively address the political context in which the insurgency flourishes. Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing-the hearts and minds of the people - and that is a battle we are not winning." Senator Ted Kennedy (D) Mass.

[Airbornelawyer]

The fighting came just two days after an American convoy fended off a highly organized ambush by a band of 40 to 50 insurgents on the outskirts of Baghdad. The American military said 26 attackers were killed in that battle, on Sunday in the town of Salman Pak, 12 miles southeast of the capital. It was the most ambitious assault against the American military since the Jan. 30 elections, and showed that the guerrilla war was still burning fiercely here two years after the Americans invaded Iraq and despite the high voter turnout in the elections.

The battle on Tuesday began at about 11 a.m., as members of the Interior Ministry's First Police Commando Battalion, acting on tips from residents of the area, approached the guerrilla camp by Lake Tharthar, Major Goldenberg said. Before the American invasion, the large lake was a popular tourist spot for Iraqis and was the site of a fish farming project begun by the government of Saddam Hussein. It lies in a barren, arid region 100 miles northwest of Baghdad and straddles the border between Anbar and Salahuddin Provinces, both insurgent strongholds dominated by the former governing Sunni Arabs.

In the two highest profile incidents involving anti-coalition forces in Iraq in the past few days, US and Iraqi forces, working together and with the assistance of locals, annihilate the terrorists (many of them apparently foreigners), and this shows that the "the guerrilla war was still burning fiercely"? And while large parts of this Sunni Arab region may be a refuge or even a safe haven for the "insurgents," it certainly doesn't sound like it's much of a "stronghold."

[boat guy]

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Ted Kennedy

[boat guy]

"It's now clear that from the very moment President Bush took office, Iraq was his highest priority as unfinished business from the first Bush Administration. His agenda was clear: find a rationale to get rid of Saddam."
Ted Kennedy

[boat guy]

"I don't know where Mary Jo is"
Ted Kennedy

[boat guy]

"Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in its veins."
Ted Kennedy

Sorry NDD, this is the last. That polesmoker just strikes chord with me.

[Airbornelawyer]

From Saca's link and other sources:

In a separate operation on Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, the US military said, 70 suspected insurgents were arrested by Iraqi forces.

Also in the capital, witnesses said shopkeepers fought a gun battle with insurgents on Tuesday, killing three of them. Correspondents say the incident is the first time private citizens are known to have retaliated successfully against insurgents.

Baghdad, 22 March 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Police say an Iraqi police antiterror unit shot dead 17 suspected insurgents and arrested 13 others in a clash near the Grand Mosque of the northern town of Mosul today.

Ten terrorists captured by Iraqi forces have confessed to planning and executing the recent attack on the Ministry of Agriculture, in which a dump truck full of explosives detonated near the building, according to a Multi-National Forces report. The terrorists also confessed to an attack on a bus that killed an Iraqi infantry officer, a Coalition officer and his interpreter, and another attack on a traffic circle in Al-Nasour that targeted an Iraqi officer and members of the security advisers office, the report said. Members of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Public Order Battalion, led by Iraqi Colonel Basim, arrested the men after raiding a house March 18. They confiscated two vehicles in the process of being turned into car bombs and a cache of weapons, including two grenades, four rockets and launchers, several small arms, detonation cord, remote-controlled devices and other items used to make bombs. They also discovered $8,480 in U.S. currency, 375,000 Iraqi dinars, five blank Iraqi passports, forged Iraqi national identification cards, cell phones and cameras. No injuries were reported as a result of the operation.

American Forces Press Service, March 21, 2005 – Six insurgents were killed March 20 and several more were arrested earlier this week after a spate of attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces, military officials in Baghdad reported. The military today said three insurgents were killed after Iraqi forces defended against enemy forces who ambushed a vehicle convoy near Habaniyah. One of the attackers was wounded. Four Iraqi soldiers injured in the ambush were treated and released at a local hospital. And during separate fighting today near Baqubah, Iraqi soldiers killed three more insurgents after what is believed to have been a coordinated attack against an Iraqi army headquarters station.

Task Force Liberty Soldiers rescued a hostage and detained two Iraqi men during a raid near Bayji about 11 p.m., March 16. Soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team conducted the raid to rescue the kidnap victim.

With the graduation of nearly 1,500 soldiers at the Kirkush Military Training Base, March 20, all 27 battalions of nine brigades in the new Iraqi Army are now operational.

The "insurgents" have had their victories, though:

In Baghdad on Wednesday, a rocket or mortar hit a school and exploded, killing an 11-year-old girl and injuring at least one other child.

23 March 2005 (RFE/RL) -- A bomb planted outside a primary school in the Ali Salih area of the Al-Iskan neighborhood of Baghdad detonated on 23 March, killing two people and wounding several others, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reported. RFI's Baghdad correspondent Jumana al-Ubaidi was interviewing police that had arrived on the scene to defuse the bomb when the device exploded. Police had closed off the neighborhood at around 1 p.m. after residents discovered the bomb in the street outside the school. As al-Ubaidi asked Police First Lieutenant Ali about the unfolding incident, the bomb detonated, killing one police officer, a sapper, and wounding three others. An unidentified civilian on the scene said that the sapper killed in the attack had tried to defuse the bomb, but apparently failed. On his second attempt, the bomb detonated.

By the way, the unit responsible for defeating that "most ambitious assault against the American military since the Jan. 30 elections" was the 617th Military Police Company, a Kentucky Army National Guard unit.

[JGarcia]

By the way, the unit responsible for defeating that "most ambitious assault against the American military since the Jan. 30 elections" was the 617th Military Police Company, a Kentucky Army National Guard unit.

Can I get a Hooah? Go guard!

[Airbornelawyer]

Hooah!

BTW, the support for the Iraqis in the assault on the Lake Tharthar training camp came from the Guard's 42nd Infantry Division, but the Rainbow Division commands both active and Guard elements, so I don't know if the actual forces involved were one or the other.