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Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe
A unit of 600 soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team descended on the village of Buhriz al Barra, only to find it largely devoid of adult males. "They knew we were coming," one American soldier said.
(By Joshua Partlow -- The Washington Post)
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"They fought it out for like eight days, a knock-down, drag-out fight," Lt. Prisock said. "Towards the end, 1920s started running out of ammunition, [rocket-propelled grenades] and stuff like that."
Since these battles, U.S. troops say they have received more information from Iraqis about the whereabouts of roadside bombs and insurgent hide-outs. On the day of the Buhriz al-Barra operation, Col. Sutherland met with the leaders of the Bani Zaid, Al-Karkhiya, Al-Mujama and Shammar tribes to try to broker a peace agreement, using his troop presence in the village as a sign they were serious about fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In parts of Baqubah, something of an unspoken truce has emerged between the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the U.S. military, said Capt. Aaron Tiffany, 26, a platoon leader from St. Louis.
"It's like, 'Hey, we're not going to attack you if you help us get rid of al-Qaeda,' " he said.
But the information provided by insurgent leaders and others on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters often does not pan out. In one raid this month led by Tiffany, U.S. and Iraqi troops burst into a house in southern Baqubah, blindfolded and slapped plastic handcuffs on one man, and forced four others to kneel and face the wall with hands behind their heads.
"We don't like al-Qaeda in these parts," Staff Sgt. Justin Little, 26, said to an Iraqi man with a white blindfold over his eyes, as Little pushed him by the back of the neck toward a wall.
After questioning the man, Tiffany issued a warning through his interpreter. "Tell him if he won't give us enough information, we'll give him to the Iraqi army and let them deal with him," he said. "I don't have enough to detain him, but the Iraqi army doesn't need as much information as me."
Eventually, Tiffany released all the men when the original informant began to change his story, saying they might not actually have been involved in crimes.
The tip may have been a trap. A few minutes after leaving the house, the convoy of Strykers was attacked by a stream of AK-47 rifle fire, followed by a thunderous roadside bomb that exploded within feet of the vehicles. After firing back nearly 2,000 rounds, the soldiers made it back to their base unharmed.
On another recent night raid near Muqdadiyah -- based on a tip from the Iraqi police -- U.S. soldiers rolled out in six Humvees expecting to find a half-dozen al-Qaeda in Iraq members in a meeting.
Instead they found a crying mother and her terrified 13-year-old boy.
"Tell him, since he's the oldest one in the house, he's the man of the house, he needs to man-up and stop hiding behind his mother," 1st Lt. Christopher Nogle, 23, of Orlando, instructed his interpreter.
