Iraqi, US forces push into Baghdad, focus on Kadhimiyah, Dura districts

U.S. helicopters over Baghdad today. Above: Colored boxes show the Kadhimiyah district (top) and Dura district (bottom) where operations were focused.

BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi forces pushed into Baghdad on Friday to clean up insurgent and militia hotbeds, launching house-to-house searches in a major operation to restore order in the battered Iraqi capital.

Witnesses said US and Iraqi troops had cordoned off areas in frontline districts in northern and southern Baghdad and were hunting for militants.

“We are still flowing forces into the city,” US Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver told AFP, while both military and civilian officials warned reporters not to expect instant results from the operation.

The US military has begun moving the first of 21,500 reinforcements into Baghdad in the latest in a series of operations to regain control of a city plagued by insurgent gangs and sectarian death squads.

US Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl described the activity as ”framework operations” that involved “presence patrols in partnership with Iraqi national police.”

Apache attack helicopters circled over the town centre and the sound of gunfire and a distant explosion disturbed the calm resulting from the weekly vehicle curfew imposed to protect worshippers at Friday prayers.

Four Iraqi national police patrol boats sped up the river Tigris, which roughly divides Baghdad between a mainly Shiite east and a west viciously disputed by rival Sunni and Shiite factions.

Earlier Friday, Bleichwehl had confirmed operations were underway in the southern Sunni suburb of Dura and the northern Shiite district of Kadhimiyah, both scenes of recent violence.

“It’s a mosaic of activity out there, there are multiple missions,” he said.

Read the rest at the Khaleej Times

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