Reports: Offensive moves to door-to-door searches for fighters; Roads hit by airstrikes to prevent escape; 68 'militants' reported killed so far

Above: Soldiers from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division move through a neighborhood in Baqubah this week as part of 'Operation Arrowhead Ripper'.

U.S. commanders say hundreds of al-Qaida holed up in Baqouba

U.S. troops are scouring houses and vehicles to root out hundreds of al-Qaida militants believed holed up in western Baqouba, which has become the center of a massive military offensive, a commander said Friday...

Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated several hundred al-Qaida fighters remain in the western half of the city.

"They're clearly in hiding, no question about it. But they're a hardline group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can," he said in an interview with The Associated Press and another news agency.

"It's 24-7 for us here, and it's probably the same for our adversary as well," he said. "It's house-to-house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer — and it's also cars, vans — we're searching every one of them."

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

17 killed in Khalis airstrike for being suspicious

Thousands of U.S. soldiers on the offensive north of Baghdad are facing fierce resistance from hundreds of al Qaeda militants who are ready to fight to the death, an American general said on Friday...

Not far from Baquba, U.S. attack helicopters killed 17 suspected al Qaeda gunmen on the outskirts of the town of Khalis early on Friday, the U.S. military said.

The military said those killed were armed and had been acting suspiciously around an Iraqi police patrol. That brings to 68 the number of militants killed so far in the operation.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

'Former' insurgents given logistical support

Bednarek said the fight against al Qaeda in Diyala also involved local Sunnis Arabs who opposed the United States but who wanted to end al Qaeda domination of their communities.

He said this included fighters from the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a large Sunni Arab insurgent group that has fallen out with al Qaeda over its indiscriminate killing of civilians.

His forces were only providing logistical support, he said.

American military commanders have increasingly begun arming and equipping Sunni Arab tribes to fight al Qaeda under a model first used in volatile western Anbar province.

Read the rest at the Macon Daily

Troops Pushing South Through Insurgent Area

More than 1,200 American soldiers are pushing south along the Tigris River through a Sunni insurgent haven known as Arab Jubour, a formidable operation that is part of an overall U.S. strategy to take control of the terrain encircling the capital.

In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, Americans are fighting in city streets to detain insurgents and destroy their bomb-making facilities. In Arab Jubour, south of the capital, they are moving amid dense palm groves and along dusty canal roads in a grinding door-to-door search that began Saturday...

In past large-scale assaults, U.S. soldiers frequently descended on suspected enemy hideouts only to find that many of the male adults had fled. This time, attack aircraft have dropped thunderous explosives on roads to cut off escape routes. They have destroyed at least 17 boats on the Tigris that soldiers suspected were being used to ferry munitions north to Baghdad. Two other brigades operating on the eastern and western flanks of the Marne Torch operation are trying to keep fighters from leaving the area.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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