Iraq Notebook
Troops see more strife in Ramadi

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RAMADI, Iraq — As U.S. Marines and soldiers have blasted their way through Fallujah, another insurgent outpost has grown stronger 30 miles down the road in Ramadi.

Insurgent attacks on U.S. troops here have markedly intensified in the past two weeks, and enemy combatants are now conducting a more determined battle, commanders say.

"My personal take is that Ramadi is a less-publicized Fallujah, in the sense of the combat you face every time you go into town," said Capt. Ben Siebold, a company commander in an Army battalion. "In the time I've been here, the nature of the enemy has changed. He's more determined, more organized and a little bit better shot."

Some mosques have been turned into ammo dumps for insurgents who flee to them after taking shots at U.S. convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

"Ramadi is really out of control, and they needed another infantry battalion in the city," said Lt. Col. Justin Gubler, commander of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry. Up to 150 foreign fighters are in the city, he said. "We've seen an increase in their proficiency and their will to fight."

Senator questions size of U.S. force

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A breakout of violence in the relatively calm city of Mosul that forced the United States to divert an Army unit from the attack on Fallujah this week has raised questions about whether the 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are enough to do the job.

"In my mind, there's a legitimate issue about the number of troops," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former 82nd Airborne officer visiting Iraq this weekend.

Although hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. reinforcements from elsewhere in Iraq were quickly ordered to shore up defenses in Mosul, the top U.S. commander there said he did not need more troops.
 
"I'm satisfied that the forces assigned to me are adequate for the mission," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, who commands 8,000 U.S. troops in northern Iraq, said yesterday. Ham said the issue is not more U.S. forces, but training and equipping Iraqi police and soldiers.

He said many of the Iraqi police in Mosul abandoned their posts to the insurgents. "It was very disappointing," Ham said.

Islamist video warns of a widening conflict

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Islamist groups, including one led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, vowed in a video obtained yesterday to take their battle in Fallujah to all corners of Iraq.

A masked gunman reading a joint statement from several militant groups also warned Iraqi government workers and soldiers would be targeted unless they stopped work immediately.

"All citizens must stay away from places where American troops, pagan army and collaborator police are present," the gunman also warned.

The video, obtained by Reuters in Fallujah, showed three masked men carrying assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. It could not be immediately authenticated.

ALSO

An Iraqi Red Crescent convoy reached Fallujah yesterday with the first aid since U.S.-led forces began to blast their way in Monday. It is unclear how many of Fallujah's 300,000 people remain in the city. There has also been no firm word on civilian casualties.

Seventy-three U.S. soldiers from Iraq were flown yesterday to a military hospital in Ramstein, Germany, most of them wounded in the battle for Fallujah, officials said. The new patients pushed the number of arrivals last week to 412.

The Shiite Muslim mayor of a Baghdad suburb of Abu Dashir district was shot to death Friday, witnesses said yesterday. They said Nouri al-Rubaie was killed while he was walking with his family on a busy street. His predecessor was assassinated last spring.