Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
March 16, 2007
First day in Diyala is a bloody one; 1 GI dead, 12 hurt
By Lauren Frayer, Associated Press
BAQOUBA, Iraq — Dozens of U.S. Stryker combat vehicles roared into Baqouba at sunrise. The enemy was ready. As the dawn call to prayer fell silent, the streets blazed with insurgent fire.
Within minutes of the start of their first mission in Diyala province Wednesday, a voice crackled across the radio: "Catastrophic kill, with casualties."
Inside the rear of one Stryker, soldiers shushed one another and leaned closer to the radio. They all knew what it meant. A U.S. vehicle had been lost to hostile fire.
Nearly 100 Strykers, armored troop carriers with .50-caliber machine guns, were called north from Baghdad into the province and its capital to try — yet again — to rout Sunni insurgents, many who recently fled the month-old Baghdad security operation.
The fighters have renewed their campaign of bombings and killings just 35 miles northeast of the capital as the war enters its fifth year. Diyala province is quickly becoming as dangerous as Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent bastion west of Baghdad.
Rocket-propelled grenades pounded buildings Wednesday where U.S. soldiers sought cover. Mortar rounds soared overhead and crashed to earth spewing clouds of deadly shrapnel.
Gunfire rattled ceaselessly — the hollow pop of insurgent AK-47s and whoosh of grenade launchers nearly drowned out by shuddering blasts from the .50-caliber machine guns.
Soldiers screamed into their radios for backup. Apache attack helicopters swooped in, firing Hellfire missiles.
By day's end, one soldier was dead, 12 wounded and two Strykers destroyed. The Americans said dozens of insurgents were killed but gave no specific number.
It was a bloody first day for the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment — the crack Stryker battalion sent from Baghdad's northern suburbs.
"They threw everything at us — RPGs, mortars — and a guy even tossed a grenade just in front of my vehicle," said Capt. Huber Parsons, the 28-year-old commander of the 5-20's Attack company.
"It was quite an introduction to Diyala," said Sgt. William Rose of the 5-20's 3rd platoon, Alpha company. "That was the most contact we've had in weeks, maybe months," said the Arlington, Mass., native.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday in a roadside bombing in mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad and the military said it found a sophisticated weapon at the site of the type that Washington believes is being supplied by Iran to Shiite militias.
Car bombings — the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents — also struck the Baghdad area, killing at least 14 people. More than half of them died when a suicide driver detonated his explosives as a convoy carrying the head of the Baghdad City Council was passing an Iraqi military checkpoint in the central Karradah neighborhood.
The U.S. military said the attack against the Americans began when a bomb went off as a U.S. unit was returning from a search operation. Moments later, a second bomb exploded, killing the four and wounding two other soldiers.
March 16, 2007
First day in Diyala is a bloody one; 1 GI dead, 12 hurt
By Lauren Frayer, Associated Press
BAQOUBA, Iraq — Dozens of U.S. Stryker combat vehicles roared into Baqouba at sunrise. The enemy was ready. As the dawn call to prayer fell silent, the streets blazed with insurgent fire.
Within minutes of the start of their first mission in Diyala province Wednesday, a voice crackled across the radio: "Catastrophic kill, with casualties."
Inside the rear of one Stryker, soldiers shushed one another and leaned closer to the radio. They all knew what it meant. A U.S. vehicle had been lost to hostile fire.
Nearly 100 Strykers, armored troop carriers with .50-caliber machine guns, were called north from Baghdad into the province and its capital to try — yet again — to rout Sunni insurgents, many who recently fled the month-old Baghdad security operation.
The fighters have renewed their campaign of bombings and killings just 35 miles northeast of the capital as the war enters its fifth year. Diyala province is quickly becoming as dangerous as Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent bastion west of Baghdad.
Rocket-propelled grenades pounded buildings Wednesday where U.S. soldiers sought cover. Mortar rounds soared overhead and crashed to earth spewing clouds of deadly shrapnel.
Gunfire rattled ceaselessly — the hollow pop of insurgent AK-47s and whoosh of grenade launchers nearly drowned out by shuddering blasts from the .50-caliber machine guns.
Soldiers screamed into their radios for backup. Apache attack helicopters swooped in, firing Hellfire missiles.
By day's end, one soldier was dead, 12 wounded and two Strykers destroyed. The Americans said dozens of insurgents were killed but gave no specific number.
It was a bloody first day for the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment — the crack Stryker battalion sent from Baghdad's northern suburbs.
"They threw everything at us — RPGs, mortars — and a guy even tossed a grenade just in front of my vehicle," said Capt. Huber Parsons, the 28-year-old commander of the 5-20's Attack company.
"It was quite an introduction to Diyala," said Sgt. William Rose of the 5-20's 3rd platoon, Alpha company. "That was the most contact we've had in weeks, maybe months," said the Arlington, Mass., native.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday in a roadside bombing in mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad and the military said it found a sophisticated weapon at the site of the type that Washington believes is being supplied by Iran to Shiite militias.
Car bombings — the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents — also struck the Baghdad area, killing at least 14 people. More than half of them died when a suicide driver detonated his explosives as a convoy carrying the head of the Baghdad City Council was passing an Iraqi military checkpoint in the central Karradah neighborhood.
The U.S. military said the attack against the Americans began when a bomb went off as a U.S. unit was returning from a search operation. Moments later, a second bomb exploded, killing the four and wounding two other soldiers.
