Strykers lead massive push in Iraq

BAQOUBA, Iraq — Under a starlit sky, soldiers poured out of Stryker armored vehicles and crept silently along a weed-choked canal. Attack helicopters circled overhead as tanks stood by.

At the first house, the troops startled a barefooted man in a traditional white robe out of his sleep. The man warned them the road ahead was riddled with bombs. At the next house, gunshots smacked against a wall the soldiers were using to take cover.

The troops were part of a massive push to clear an insurgent outpost in the heart of this city of 300,000, roughly 35 miles north of Baghdad. The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Lewis, has taken the lead role in a major new offensive in Diyala province.

Throughout Wednesday, soldiers hefting food, water, weapons and ammunition on their backs hoisted themselves over walls and darted across streets in a slow, deliberate house-by-house search for arms and fighters.

By late morning, as the temperature soared to more than 100 degrees, members of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment — who accompanied the Strykers — paused in a small, stuffy house. Outside, an airstrike had been called in to destroy a suspected car bomb in their path. The home's residents waited anxiously under U.S. guard.

A thunderous explosion rocked the house. "That was the VBIED," said Spc. Chris Martin, 23, using the military acronym for a car bomb — a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

Developments in Iraq

Mosque bombings: Suspected Shiite extremists blew up three Sunni mosques south of Baghdad, in the cities of Haswa, Hillah and Iskandariyah, causing heavy damage but no casualties. The bombings apparently were revenge strikes for a suicide truck bombing Tuesday that badly damaged an important Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing at least 87.

Orphan rescue: U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage, the U.S. military said. Iraqi Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mahmoud Mohammed al-Radhi said the institution in which the boys were housed had saved them from certain death and that all the boys were severely handicapped and had been abandoned by their families.

Resignation offer: Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician, tendered his resignation last week. Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents.

Green Zone attacks: The U.S. military acknowledged that insurgents are firing more mortar rounds and rockets into Baghdad's Green Zone. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Fox refused to disclose the number of attacks.

Sunni allies? Samah Ibrahim, who lives in central Baqouba, said Iraqi police had been confiscating private cars and giving them to masked men waving Iraqi flags, who were driving around in police-escorted convoys. He speculated the men were members of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a Sunni resistance group that until recently was allied with al-Qaida in Iraq. In a tactic being tried by U.S. forces in other parts of the country, Brigade members recently were recruited to work alongside U.S. and Iraqi forces against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Seattle Times news services

Baqouba, capital of Diyala province, with its volatile mix of Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds, long has been a flashpoint for violence. Al-Qaida last year declared the city the capital of its self-styled Islamic caliphate. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the group's former leader, died in a U.S. airstrike near the city a year ago.

Since armored Stryker vehicles rolled into Baqouba in March, U.S. forces largely have succeeded in bringing calm to some neighborhoods, said Lt. Col. Bruce Antonia, commander of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment.

Residents say that Islamic extremists hid their guns and blended with locals ahead of the dragnet and that some forced truckers to cart their weapons and ammunition out of the area.

"It is frustrating," Antonia said.

The lull has allowed U.S. forces to start focusing on infrastructure improvements — electricity, water, sewage — that they hope will win over the local population.

The Baqouba offensive, involving about 10,000 U.S. troops, was launched early Tuesday.

By Wednesday afternoon, military officials said, 41 suspected insurgents had been killed and five homes rigged with explosives had been destroyed.

Officials also confirmed that one American had been killed — a surprisingly low death toll given the reported size of the operation.

A similar-sized assault on Fallujah in 2004 resulted in scores of U.S. deaths and injuries.

The death brought to at least 3,531 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.

The United States has insisted that unlike previous raids, this and other offensives will succeed because troops will stay in the area for months, if necessary.

Smoke grenades

On Wednesday, Stryker soldiers moved swiftly in the pounding heat, hugging the walls of expansive villas to avoid sniper fire in streets littered with empty cans, rotting fruit and eggs. They tossed smoke grenades into a trash-strewn lot before dashing across and taking cover behind a garden wall.

Many homes were empty. In others, residents left the gates unlocked and waited for them inside dim, stuffy living rooms, in accordance with instructions broadcast over loudspeakers.

In Khatoon, one of three neighborhoods targeted by the offensive, residents said the arrival of the masked gunmen in their midst last year was accompanied by gunfights, bodies in the streets and car bombings. Residents said the gunmen had been operating openly for months, driving through neighborhoods with guns poking out the windows of their car and imposing their fundamentalist brand of Islam. Smoking was banned, and women were required to wear the enveloping black robe known as an abaya.

"They kicked all the Shiites out of the street and occupied their houses," said a Sunni civil servant, too afraid to give his name. "When they left yesterday, they took weapons with them hidden in bags and went to the next neighborhood."

The insurgents appeared to be expecting the offensive. The main streets were riddled with bombs, and lookouts kept watch from alleys and rooftops.

After some blistering gunfights, many apparently retreated farther north without bothering to hide their weapons caches, Lt. Eric Williams said.

But U.S. forces had the area surrounded.

"In a day or two, we will probably get into some more firefights," he said. "They will keep doing this until they feel cornered, when they will either put up a fight or drop their weapons and blend."

At one house, a geography teacher who gave his name only as Mohammed brought a 2-year-old boy to the Americans, hoping they could repair damage from a piece of shrapnel that flew into the child's eye during a recent car bombing. Mohammed said he had tried to seek treatment at a U.S. base but that insurgents had warned him against approaching the Americans. Desperate, he had asked his uncle to go to the base, but gunmen had shot and killed the man, he said.

He was happy to see U.S. troops, who promised to have one of their doctors look at the child's eye and asked Mohammed to help them with information about suspicious activity in the neighborhood.

"We were so worried about our lives, but now I feel better," he said.

Antonia said, however, that U.S. troops knew others would be less welcoming and were expecting a fight as they pressed deeper into the city.

"I think they see what we are doing on the east side and they don't want us to do the same on the west side, so they have been putting in defenses," he said, referring to insurgent groups. "I think there will be a lot of IEDs, and I think there will be a lot of weapons pointed at us."

McClatchy Newspapers and The Associated Press contributed to this report.