Stryker Brigade News

Within minutes of the afternoon attack, U.S. troops retaliated. Three F-18 fighter jets zoomed overhead, dropping Maverick missiles and firing on suspects in a western neighborhood of Mosul where for weeks insurgents have been trying to wreak havoc on U.S. and Iraqi forces with rocket-propelled grenades, gunfire and booby-trapped cars.

The planes dived in and out of a thick, black mushroom cloud that hung on the horizon of Camp Marez, the site of a dining hall suicide bombing on Dec. 21 that killed 22 people and wounded dozens. [...]

Wednesday's battle started when a militant drove the truck filled with explosives into concrete barricades surrounding the military outpost, a small four-story building. The blast put a hole in the barricades, which had recently been shored up, said Col. Erik Kurilla, commander of the 1st Brigade, 24th Infantry Regiment. Fighters then barraged the outpost with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, he said.

Kurilla responded with his team of Stryker armored vehicles. As the group neared the combat outpost, another bomb-filled vehicle rammed into one of the Strykers rumbling down the road.

"It was a complex attack," Kurilla said. "There were some incredibly heroic actions by our men."

Kurilla and other commanders have been expecting violence to escalate with upcoming elections at the end of January. Mosul has been the site of increasing insurgent activity, and intelligence officials suspect ringleaders moved their operations here after the Marines attacked their former stronghold in Fallujah.