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Phantom Thunder: A Fearsome Force
I would not want to be an Al Qaeda terrorist in Baghdad. They are dead men walking running hiding no, just dead men. From today’s AP account:
BAGHDAD (AP) —U.S. forces fighting al-Qaida and allied militants intensified operations Wednesday in Baghdad and on all four points of the compass around the capital . . . An Associated Press reporter in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province to the north and east of Baghdad, reported intense gunbattles in the streets and around the main market district as American and Iraqi forces sought to clear the city of al-Qaida fighters.
. . . The latest military report on the Diyala offensive said U.S. and Iraqi forces killed at least 30 al-Qaida operatives and discovered 10 roadside bombs and four homemade bombs Tuesday, the first full day of fighting. Iraq’s Defense Ministry said three civilians were wounded, 13 suspected al-Qaida fighters were detained and 14 roadside bombs dismantled. Troops also defused three car bombs and seized three weapons caches, it said.
. . . The head of a Sunni insurgent group that has turned against al-Qaida in Diyala province and is cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the area said his fighters were participating in the operations and had succeeded in clearing several neighborhoods in eastern and western Baqouba.
. . . The U.S. military said it has 10,000 American soldiers in Diyala province, an al-Qaida bastion, a troop strength that matched in size the force that American generals sent against the insurgent-held city of Fallujah 2 1/2 years ago.
With all of the nearly 30,000 additional troops ordered to Iraq by President Bush now in place, the military said the massive operations on Baghdad’s flanks were “a powerful crackdown to defeat extremists†and named the combined offensives “Operation Phantom Thunder.â€
. . . In what appeared to be the second largest assault, an estimated 2,500 U.S. soldiers were pushing into districts south and southeast of the capital. They killed four insurgents, detained more than 60 others and destroyed 17 boats, “significantly disrupting insurgent operations on the Tigris River,†the military said.
West of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces were engaging insurgents and al-Qaida elements in more rural areas, the military said. “These operations are helping to interdict the enemy along the belts between Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi and the cities of the Western Euphrates River Valley.â€
Farther south, the U.S. military said three militants had been killed, including a senior leader of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, and 45 detained after two days of clashes in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospital officials put the casualty toll at 35 killed and 150 wounded.
Much more from Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail and, of course, Michael Yon who is embedded in Operation Arrowhead Ripper.