700 more US soldiers arrive in troubled Iraqi province
More than 700 additional US troops arrived in Iraq’s increasingly volatile Diyala province today, to try to quell burgeoning violence just north-east of Baghdad.
The Army’s 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division moved from northern Baghdad into in Baqouba, Diyala’s provincial capital, early today, to supplement about 3,500 American soldiers already stationed there.
Fifteen Stryker armoured vehicles pulled into Baqouba from Taji, just north of Baghdad, at 9.30am local time after leaving their base under a thunderous outgoing artillery barrage.
The move comes at a time when more than 20,000 new American troops are pouring in to Baghdad – the so-called “surge” – as part of a US-Iraqi push to pacify the capital. The idea is to bring Baghdad’s violence down to a level that is manageable for Iraqi forces, in hopes that the fragile Iraqi government has room to function.
Also today, a roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying Industry Ministry employees in northern Baghdad, killing two workers and wounding six.
In Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, police dragged two bodies out of Tigris River, a morgue official said in Kut. The bodies showed signs of torture.
Also in Kut, gunmen killed an interpreter working for coalition troops. Police said Ibrahim Sasa was killed in the centre of the provincial capital.
While sectarian killings in Baghdad have fallen since the crackdown began last month, violence has skyrocketed to the north-east in Diyala, where direct attacks on US forces have risen 70 per cent since last summer, according to US military figures.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of the Army’s 25th Infantry Division and the top US official in northern Iraq, said the decision to send Strykers into Diyala was not a last-minute reaction to an increase in violence there.
“We began looking at this several months ago, in support of the Baghdad plan. We knew the surrounding provinces would be in play,” Mixon said.
More than two weeks ago, two light infantry companies were deployed to Diyala from elsewhere in northern Iraq, to help set up small combat outposts with US and Iraqi troops, Mixon said. But the Strykers would be the first major increase in troop levels in Diyala.
The additional American forces join more than 20,000 Iraqi security forces currently serving in Diyala, according to figures provided by the US military. About half of those are Iraqi police, and half are members of the Iraqi 5th Army Division.
