There is continued evidence that the gloves are off; US and Iraqi forces did some street cleaning on Haifa Street in Baghdad yesterday.
Implementing the principles layed out in the US President's State of the Union address yesterday, US occupation troops in Iraq are making renewed efforts to militarily target Sunni areas believed to be housing insurgents. After having told inhabitants to leave the area around Haifa Street, US fighter helicopters and armoured vehicles, aided by Iraqi armed forces, launched a day-long battle against buildings in the area. According to the Iraqi Defense Minister, 30 people defined insurgents were killed and 35 arrested.
Attacking, clearing, and holding Haifa Street is part of a lager operation known as Operation Tomahawk. The operation on Haifa Street; Strike 11.
As the operation commenced early this morning, coalition and Iraqi forces were engaged by an enemy mortar team. A single mortar round was launched by coalition forces, and the insurgent mortar team dispersed.
At dawn, troops met enemy resistance, including hand-held grenades, small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from high-rise buildings in the area. Direct, indirect and air support fire were used in support of troops in contact from high-rise buildings. Combined forces continue to clear objectives despite resistance from insurgent forces, officials said.
Operation Tomahawk 11 has resulted in the seizure of a weapons cache where numerous RPG rounds, anti-tank rounds and 155 mm artillery munitions were uncovered.
Soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, officers from the 5th Iraqi National Police Brigade and elements of the U.S. 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division initiated raids as part of Operation Tomahawk Strike 11 on Haifa Street to disrupt illegal militia activity and help restore Iraq security force control in the area.
The International Herald Tribune reports
The Haifa Street operation, involving Bradley Fighting Vehicles as well as the highly mobile Stryker vehicles, is likely to cause plenty of reflection by the commanders in charge of the Baghdad buildup of more than 20,000 troops. Just how those extra troops will be used is not yet known, but it is likely to mirror at least broadly the Haifa Street strategy of working with Iraqi forces to take on unruly groups from both sides of the Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide.
The commander of the operation, Lt. Col. Avanulas Smiley of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, said his forces were not interested in whether opposition came from bullets fired by Sunnis or by Shiites. He conceded that the cost of letting the Iraqi forces learn on the job was to add to the risk involved in the operation.
"This was an Iraqi-led effort and with that come challenges and risks," Smiley said. "It can be organized chaos."
The American units in the operation began moving up Haifa Street from the south by 2 a.m. on Wednesday. A platoon of B Company in the Stryker Brigade secured the roof of a high rise, where an Eminem poster was stuck on the wall of what appeared to be an Iraqi teenager's room on the top floor. But in a pattern that would be repeated again and again in a series of buildings, there was no one in the apartment.
Many of the Iraqi units that showed up late never seemed to take the task seriously, searching haphazardly, breaking dishes and rifling through personal CD collections in the apartments. Eventually the Americans realized that the Iraqis were searching no more than half of the apartments; at one point the Iraqis completely disappeared, leaving the American unit working with them flabbergasted.
"Where did they go?" yelled Sgt. Jeri A. Gillett. Another soldier suggested, "I say we just let them go and we do this ourselves."
Then the gunfire began. It would come from high rises across the street, from behind trash piles and sandbags in alleys and from so many other directions that the soldiers began to worry that the Iraqi soldiers were firing at them. Mortars started dropping from across the Tigris River, to the east, in the direction of a Shiite slum.
The only thing that was clear was that no one knew who the enemy was. "The thing is, we wear uniforms — they don't," said Specialist Terry Wilson.
I guess the bad guys didn't sign the Geneva Conventions.
