Blast Kills 6 as Troops Hunt Iraqi Insurgents

Some soldiers listening to radio communications following the blast were angered that an hour passed from the first accounts of casualties just after noon to word that some of the injured had been airlifted at 1:15 p.m.

"This is ridiculous. I just don't understand why it took so long to get them out," said Staff Sgt. David Rozmarin, 26, of Omaha, who was sitting inside a Stryker combat vehicle as it rolled through villages where soldiers searched for weapons and insurgents.

Maj. Shawn Garcia, a U.S. military spokesman, could not be reached early Thursday for comment on the evacuation. Other officials asked that the unit of the dead soldiers not be identified because their families had not yet been notified.

The entry into Himbuz itself took place about 3 p.m., soldiers said. As troops moved into the town, a man on the second floor of a three-story building waved a red-and-green flag as if it were an insurgent banner, according to reports over the radio. Then he fled.

There was little fighting most of the day in the Bread Basket, though a number of bombs and weapons caches were found, ground commanders said.

A company outside Himbuz spent the day searching orange and date groves for weapons and insurgent fighters, for the most part with no success. U.S. troops surrounded the area to prevent fighters from escaping.

After finding a maze of paths in the date groves outside Himbuz that commanders had identified as possible exit routes, soldiers stood guard as others entered the town. Some soldiers doubted they would be able to spot an insurgent among people leaving Himbuz, but in any event no one fled.

"It's very possible for someone to be hiding in plain sight in front of us," Coffey said.

The operation in Diyala is part of a broader U.S. military offensive called Phantom Phoenix, which includes forces across the country.

Across four provinces of northern Iraq, the effort involves 24,000 U.S.-led troops, 50,000 Iraqi army soldiers, 80,000 Iraqi policemen and some of the 15,000 U.S.-backed volunteers, Hertling said.

An Iraqi commander in Diyala province, Lt. Gen. Abdul Kareem al-Rubaie, estimated that 20 to 30 suspected insurgents were killed there during the initial operations, a figure that Hertling corroborated as roughly accurate.

Battalion commanders on the ground, however, said only a few insurgents had been killed over the past two days.