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Major Offensive Targets Insurgents
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Villagers encountered on Tuesday told the Americans of mistreatment by the Sunni insurgents. In one town, locals said al-Qaeda in Iraq imposed curfews from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day.
"Al-Qaeda said, 'You must all work for us now,' " Sgt. Patrick Martin of Saratoga, N.Y., recalled villagers telling him.
Maj. Shawn Garcia, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Diyala, said al-Qaeda in Iraq was organized into companies, squadrons and possibly a brigade.
"They used to have free sanctuary in the Bread Basket because we never had enough combat power to rout them out," he said.
Last June, the military launched a campaign against Sunni insurgents in Baqubah, the Diyala provincial capital. But the fighters apparently learned of the offensive and most evaded capture.
The new offensive, known as Operation Raider Harvest, is showing how difficult it is to discern whether someone is an insurgent.
One of the Iraqis wounded and then detained on Tuesday was shot because U.S. soldiers said he refused to listen to their commands. "He just did the wrong thing at the wrong time," one soldier told Coffey over his radio. "But I don't know if we can call him a detainee. I don't think he has anything incriminating against him."
American officials said the goal of the mission was to hold the area and help it develop economically. Garcia said U.S. soldiers and diplomats will work to revive the area, once known as Green Diyala.
"Before the surge we just didn't have enough combat power to hold what we've now held," he said.
Military commanders also said the support of the Iraqi army will be crucial. But they concede that the Iraqi security forces are still rife with problems -- and have not been fully briefed on the operation.
"We didn't tell them about it until the day of, knowing they were probably infiltrated by al-Qaeda," said Maj. Eddie Sedlock, an operations officer in Diyala.
Coffey and his men were planning to push Wednesday morning to a village where they believed the remaining al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters were clustered.
As he prepared to get a little rest just before midnight, Coffey said he wasn't sure whether his unit would encounter a bitter fight or an empty town.
"Our goal in this counterinsurgency isn't just to kill 20, 30, 40 people," he said. "It's holding the area and driving out bad guys. If we could just do that, then maybe these people can finally live in peace."
