Stryker Brigade News

Here — off the public radar screen — violence has spun viciously out of control in recent months, while all eyes were on Baghdad.

“Diyala is a little Iraq. We’ve got it all — tribal wars, sectarian wars and al-Qaida,” Sutherland said recently at his office on a U.S. base in Baqubah.

The colonel, who underwent heart bypass surgery four years ago, asked to be sent to Iraq and was dispatched to Diyala in October.

He holds a master’s degree from the School for Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he was teaching when the Iraq war began. But he plays the role of soldier’s soldier — consciously not the academic sort — when his officers gather at the weekly bonfire. [...]

At the center of Sutherland’s battle space is the mostly Sunni metropolis of Baqubah — a city that al-Qaida-linked militants are believed to want for their capital.

Top militant leaders are hiding just north of the city, U.S. officials say, but American troops can’t get close because giant roadside bombs line the way.

Direct attacks on coalition forces are up nearly 70 percent since last summer, according to military figures.

Earlier this month, a battle-tested Stryker battalion — about 700 soldiers riding in the Army’s newest armored combat vehicles — was re-routed to Diyala from Baghdad to help.

The night they arrived, Sutherland outlined the next day’s mission. Nearly 100 armored vehicles would roll down Baqubah’s broad thoroughfares at sunrise, in a show of force.

“Right after prayers tomorrow morning, we’ll answer the prayers of the people of Baqubah,” Sutherland said, beaming.

But as the sun rose and the Muslim call-to-prayer fell silent, gunfire erupted across the city. The enemy knew they were coming. And two Stryker vehicles were lost that first day.