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By MICHAEL R. GORDON, The New York Times
BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 — One week after American forces mounted their assault on insurgent strongholds in western Baquba, at least half of the estimated 300 to 500 fighters who were there have escaped or are still at large, the colonel who is leading the attack said Monday.
Col. Steve Townsend told a group of journalists that his soldiers had wrested control over most of the area from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, deprived the insurgent group of its nominal capital and made headway in protecting the residents from reprisals by militants.
But he acknowledged that his forces had not killed or captured as many of the insurgents as he had hoped.
“We are on our way to securing the population of Baquba, which is what we came here to do,” said the colonel, who commands the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the Second Infantry Division. “I am pretty satisfied, with the exception of my own goal to kill and capture as many as possible so we don’t have to fight them somewhere else.”
The American forces had sought to trap the insurgents in the city by establishing a cordon around the western section of Baquba in the early hours of the operation.
Senior military commanders said last week that the top leaders had left the city well before they tried to seal it off, but that they hoped to kill or apprehend many of the remaining fighters. But the account from Colonel Townsend indicates that many of those fighters also eluded capture, by posing as ordinary citizens or leaving the city.
Colonel Townsend said reports from the field showed that there were more than 100 insurgent casualties; his conservative count was that 49 of them had been killed. More than 60 suspected insurgents have also been captured, he added.
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