U.S., Iraqi Forces Capture 50 Insurgents

via Yahoo ^ | March 22, 2006 | VANESSA ARRINGTON

[AZRepublican]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces trapped dozens of insurgents Wednesday during a two-hour gunbattle at a police station south of Baghdad, a day after 100 masked gunmen stormed a jail near the Iranian border and freed more than 30 prisoners, most of them fellow insurgents.

Sixty gunmen, firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, attacked the Madain police station before dawn, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said.

U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, catching the insurgents in crossfire and capturing 50 of the group, including a Syrian, al-Mohammadawi said.

A special police commander was killed and five policemen were wounded, he said. None of the attackers were killed.

Madain, 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a region rife with sectarian violence — retaliatory kidnappings and killings in the underground conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

In a highly publicized episode last April, there were reports Sunni militants had seized 100 Shiites and threatened to kill them unless all Shiites left the Madain area. Iraqi security forces swept into the region and found no hostages.

In the capital, roadside bombs that targeted police patrols wounded at least six policemen, including four who work as guards at the education ministry, police said. Gunmen in western Baghdad attacked a truck carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims returning from a religious commemoration in the city of Karbala, killing one, police said. Ten others were wounded.

Also early Wednesday, gunmen killed three civilians transporting bricks on a country road outside the city of Baqouba northeast of Baghdad, police said. A roadside bomb then exploded when a police patrol went to the site, wounding one officer, police said.

The body of a man wearing an Iraqi military uniform was delivered to a morgue in the southern city of Kut, a morgue official said. The man had been killed outside Madain, he said.

In the Tuesday attack in Muqdadiyah, about 100 gunmen cut phone wires and fired rocket-propelled grenades in a daring operation that freed 18 fellow insurgents who had been captured in police raids just two days earlier.

Police said 15 other captives were sprung in the assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup. Twenty Iraqi security men and at least 10 insurgents were killed in the attack,

In an Internet posting Tuesday night the military wing of the Mujaheddin Shura Council, a militant Sunni Muslim insurgent group, purportedly claimed it carried out the operation. The Web posting said the group killed "40 policemen, liberated 33 prisoners and captured weapons." The claim was posted on the Iraqi News Web site and could not be independently verified.

With the telephone lines cut, the insurgents had 90 minutes to battle their way into the law enforcement compound before police reinforcements showed up from the nearby villages of Wajihiyah and Abu Saida, police said.

Muqdadiyah, on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad, is about 25 miles from the Iranian frontier.

By the time the insurgents fled, taking away the bodies of many of their dead compatriots, nearly two dozen cars were shot up and set on fire and the jail was a charred mass of twisted bunk bed frames and smoldering mattresses.

U.S. helicopters were in the air above the jail after the insurgents had fled. Police said there was firing into the air by residents, but it was not clear if the American aircraft were the target. None was hit.

The insurgents whose incarceration apparently prompted the assault were detained Sunday during raids by security forces in the nearby villages of Sansal and Arab, police said.

Both U.S. and Iraqi military officials had said last year that the area was no longer an insurgent stronghold, but Tuesday's attack showed the militants still could assemble a large force, capable of operating in the region virtually at will.

The insurgency's strength, spiraling sectarian violence and the continuing stalemate over forming a government in Iraq have led politicians and foreign policy experts to say Iraq was on the brink or perhaps in the midst of civil war.

With an increasing number of Americans calling for a pullout of U.S. forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, a powerful group of U.S. senators met with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Tuesday to discuss prospects for formation of a national unity government.

The Bush administration views that step as all-important in establishing peace and opening the way for the start of a U.S. troop withdrawal as early as this summer.

Al-Jaafari said he believed Iraq's most difficult political hurdles had been crossed and predicted a new government would be ready in the coming weeks.

"I hope that the formation of the new government does not last beyond April," al-Jaafari said after the meeting.

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: "April is fine, but it is necessary that this commitment be kept in order for there to be continued support for the presence of American troops in Iraq."

Committee chairman, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), a Virginia Republican, said decisions on the U.S. troop presence would be made not only by Bush, Congress and other leaders, but also by the American people — a seeming allusion to declining U.S. popular support for the Iraq war.

"If it's perceived in America that they are proceeding with this government in less than a sincere and prompt way, then the people of the United States of America will speak up and speak up very loudly," Warner said he told al-Jaafari in the meeting.

Most mainstream Iraqi politicians do not want the U.S. to withdraw troops until the insurgency is defeated, although some more radical leaders, like firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, demand an immediate pullout.

In other violence Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded three in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities said.

A U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire Tuesday while patrolling the streets of western Baghdad, the U.S. military reported. At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Police discovered a total of 13 corpses Tuesday, nine of them in Baghdad. The other four bodies, full of bullet wounds, were found on the shores of the Tigris river about 55 miles south of the capital, police said.

Also in the capital, gunmen killed an employee of the Baghdad mayor's office while he was driving in Dora in south Baghdad.

[romanesq]

Oh they don't need to be turned over to the Kurds. There's plenty local and available to visit the terrorists scum.

And it's their worst nightmare. So let's have a Kurd officer in for a visit with the new prisoners.

[Wasanother]

There is only two reasons these terrorist are going to smaller towns for these jail breaks, the smaller towns are easier and they are running out of accomplices.

[Southack]

"So, if I'm reading this poorly organized article correctly, 100 gunmen rescued 18 other insurgents. 10 gunmen died in the process, and then 50 were (re)captured. That would put them back at 60ish gunmen, with 60 captured or killed."

100 gunmen freed 33 yesterday. They lost 10 of their own in the process. That's +23.

Then today 50 of the gunmen were captured/re-captured. That's -27. So now there are 73 known gunmen from this particular group remaining.

Had they done nothing yesterday and today, they'd have 100. Instead, they only have 73 left.

So why would a group of 100 risk 27% casualties in two operations designed to free their captured comrades?

Multiple answers are available, but the one that sticks out is that "they are currently experiencing low recruiting numbers."

[Liberator]

"From this moment forward any foreign national captured inside Iraq commiting hostile acts needs to be summarily executed in public."

Exactly.

Immediately.

Publicly.

[Liberator]

" They definitely need to be executed but only after they are interrogated and given a quick but fair trial. They should be kept alive only so long as they provide valuable intelligence about their fellow terrorists. Also, the trial and execution should be performed by Iraqi authorities--not US forces."

Not a bad idea, but when the word gets back about summarily being executed upon capture, THAT sends a chilling message that may offset "intelligence" gathering.

And yes, Iraqis should be the one doing the executing.

[McGavin999]

Their vulnerability to such attacks and the level of military expertise used by the guerrillas has raised questions about the effectiveness of Iraqi forces, which Washington expects to take over security.

The US has been training the military, not the police. They are going to start training the police THIS year.

[Marine_Uncle]

" Multiple answers are available, but the one that sticks out is that "they are currently experiencing low recruiting numbers."
Sounds like a plausible answer to me. And or, there may have been one or more key players they felt had to be freed.
As you made note, it is difficult at times to get an accurate picture due to the quality of the reporting. They jump around on different issues/incidense in what appear a deliberate attempt to cloud issues.

[Gondring]

Its time to follow the Geneva Convention's rules of warfare.

Little known to the libs, they do work both ways.

So you're suggesting US snipers and Special Forces should have to start wearing readily visible insignia? Hmmm...that's gonna get a lot of them killed...

[Gondring]

If you don't rescue captured comrades, your recruiting and morale get worse. Plus, you don't know the outcome up front.

[bill1952]

They do wear readily unidentifiable insignia..

[lowbridge]

With the telephone lines cut, the insurgents had 90 minutes to battle their way into the law enforcement compound before police reinforcements showed up from the nearby villages of Wajihiyah and Abu Saida, police said.

Haven't the Iraqi police ever hear of cell phones?

[lowbridge]

I'll bet Syrian intelligence is behind this.

[princess leah]

We ought to have sniper men positioned at the borders of Syria and Iran and just pick off anyone crossing through those terrorist countries! That ought to cut down the number of incoming terrorists (I hate the word "insurgents")...

[Gondring]

LOL

[bill1952]

I feel the same way about your impressions. :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!