U.S. launches new air campaign south of Baghdad

Above: Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division take a break in the heat at Patrol Base Whiskey-1 in July.

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military has launched a new air campaign against militant safe havens and weapons smugglers south of Baghdad as it seeks to choke the flow of bombs and weapons reaching Baghdad, a top commander said Thursday...

Lynch said he gave the order on Wednesday for the division's 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade to begin Operation Marne Husky, the latest in a series of offensives in the capital and surrounding areas.

The new operation is aimed at disrupting insurgents who fled a recent crackdown on the rural areas of Arab Jubour and Salman Pak in a predominantly Sunni area south of the capital...

“There's three pots of bad guys in my battle space. One's the Sunni extremists, one's the Shia extremists and the other is marked and increasing Iranian influence,” he said. “They're all anti-Iraq, they're all against the government of Iraq, they're all against the Iraqi people.”

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