U.S. Battalion Moved Out of Baghdad

Soldiers of the 6-9 squadron, 3rd brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, approach suspect house just outside Muqdadiyah, Iraq, 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Monday, March 12, 2007. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic) (Dusan Vranic - AP)

The rumble of outgoing artillery fire shook the ground underneath them. Before long, dusty tracts of wasteland gave way to palm groves and canals.

Soldiers used to operating in Baghdad wondered what lay ahead.

Rose, 26, said he hoped serving out the remainder of his Iraq tour in Diyala would be easier on his wife and two young daughters back home because so much news from Iraq comes out of Baghdad.

"Being in Baghdad, every little bombing or fight is reported, and they hear about it and worry," he said. "But it's hard to breathe a sigh of relief to be out of Baghdad, because we just don't know what's to come."

He then pulled aside a reporter to add: "I don't want to go by hearsay, but the word is that (Baqouba) is the worse place ever."

"But wherever the insurgents go and try to flee, we'll follow and try to flush them out," he said. "The Baghdad security plan encompasses the provinces around it, too."

The battalion will be based in Baqouba and focus on counterinsurgency measures and training Iraqi forces, said Col. David W. Sutherland, the U.S. commander in Diyala.

"We'll have more soldiers to interact with the population," he said. "It's about making the Iraqi people feel secure, and we can do that with additional forces they have confidence in."

At least 23 people were killed or found dead Tuesday in Baghdad, including four men shot to death in a Sunni mosque in the southwest of the city, the Interior Ministry reported. Of those, 14 were found handcuffed and shot to death in apparent sectarian reprisal killings.

Eight other bodies were found in Kut, including a translator who worked for coalition forces, and five corpses turned up in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

Also in Mosul, five mortar rounds exploded in the city center, killing one civilian and wounding four, police said. Militants also blasted the home of a traffic policeman, killing a bystander on the sidewalk, police said.