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Iraqi Security Forces, Coalition launch Operation Swarmer
By
March 16, 2006
TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, March 16, 2006) – More than 1,500 Coalition troops and Iraqi security forces along with 200 tactical vehicles and 50 aircraft have launched the largest air assault operation since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003.
Operation Swarmer began this morning in southern Salah Ad Din province to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra. Troops from the Iraqi Army’s 1st Bridgade, 4th Division and Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade began conducting a combined air and ground assault to isolate the objective area.
Attack and assault aircraft have been providing aerial weapons support for the operation and are also delivering troops from the Iraq Army’s 4th Division, the “Rakkasans” from 1st and 3rd Battalions, 187th Infantry Regiment and the “Hunters” from 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment to multiple objectives. Forces from the 2nd Commando Brigade then completed a ground infiltration to secure numerous structures in the area.
Initial reports from the objective area indicate that a number of enemy weapons caches have been captured, containing artillery shells, explosives, IED-making materials and military uniforms.
The operation is expected to continue for several days as a thorough search of the objective area is conducted.
Operation Swarmer follows closely the completion of a combined Iraqi-Coalition operation west of Samarra in early March that yielded substantial enemy weapons and equipment caches.
The tag Swarmer was derived from the name given to the largest peacetime airborne maneuvers ever conducted, in spring 1950 in North Carolina. Soon after this exercise, the 187th Infantry was selected to deploy to Korea as an Airborne Regimental Combat Team to provide General MacArthur with an airborne capability.
(Editor’s note: Article provided by Multi National Force-Iraq Combined Press Information Center, Baghdad.)