jatx
03-23-2005, 09:04
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.
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.