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U.S. shifts offensive to north Iraq

Jun-20-2007 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT , 4/2 SBCT

By Alexandra Zavis and Julian E. Barnes, LA Times

BAQUBAH, IRAQ — Troops in armored vehicles swept through this city north of Baghdad on Tuesday as the U.S. military launched a major offensive as part of a significant shift of focus from inside the capital to surrounding areas.

American commanders say the offensive, which involves about 10,000 U.S. troops in Baqubah and other parts of Diyala province, is designed to stop the flow of bombs into Baghdad. The need to do so was illustrated once again Tuesday when a massive truck bomb struck one of the capital's most revered Shiite Muslim mosques. The explosion killed at least 60 people and wounded scores more, the Interior Ministry said.

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Last month, the top American commander in northern Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. "Randy" Mixon, said he needed more troops to deal with the escalating violence in Diyala. That unusually frank assessment — along with a realization that Sunni insurgents controlled parts of Baqubah, the provincial capital — helped set the stage for the current offensive.

Diyala, an area of rivers and rich farmland between Baghdad and the Iranian border, has recently overtaken Al Anbar province as the deadliest place outside Baghdad for U.S. forces in Iraq. Eighty-six American troops have died in Diyala this year.

Baqubah has been the center of much of the violence. This year, Iraqi and American soldiers established themselves in the eastern parts of the city, which has roughly 300,000 residents, but its western neighborhoods have been largely under the control of insurgent groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The U.S. attack on those neighborhoods began Monday night and continued Tuesday.

Attack helicopters and warplanes pounded three neighborhoods in west Baqubah with rockets, missiles and 500-pound bombs, targeting car bombs, weapons caches and suspected hide-outs. Insurgents popped up on the rooftops and in alleys, engaging the soldiers in crackling gunfights.

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