U.S. forces conducted new raids and weapons searches in Baghdad and nearby towns and villages Monday after 10 soldiers were wounded, two seriously, in the latest ambushes on American troops by elements of the old regime.
At least 59 Iraqis were arrested in the second day of the military’s “Operation Desert Scorpion,” a campaign of raids and rewards that began Sunday to root out arms and militants in areas around the capital considered loyal to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
In the operation’s first raid inside Baghdad, troops from the Army’s 1st Armored Division detained 44 people. Among the arrested were three Iraqis suspected in a June 1 grenade attack on U.S. soldiers outside the Abu Hanifa mosque, which led to a gunfight in which two U.S. soldiers were wounded and two Iraqis killed.
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`Stick and carrot’ approach
More than 30 of the detainees were taken into custody Monday night outside the mosque and at an outdoor cafe, where some had been playing backgammon. The troops also seized two truckloads of medical supplies, which they suspected were looted.
The raids came as the U.S. continued to pursue a “stick and carrot” approach in Iraq, where U.S. forces have met with sporadic but persistent resistance. After U.S. troops have raided houses in the middle of the night, they have returned after dawn to distribute food, medicine and toys for children.
The attacks complicate U.S. efforts to secure stability in Iraq and improve the economic and political situation.
Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq, has said the U.S. strategy will be to probe with attacks and then wait for Iraqi elements to respond. The U.S., he said, will then take countermeasures.
“We have set the action in motion,” said Capt. John Morgan, an Army spokesman. “Now we are seeing the reaction.”
Monday’s raids came after two attacks on U.S. military convoys with rocket-propelled grenades in the previous 24 hours. In one ambush Sunday, a grenade aimed at a U.S. vehicle hit a passing civilian bus about 15 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Eight U.S. troops were wounded, two seriously.
“The number of casualties on the civilian bus is not known at this time,” the Army said.
In the other ambush, soldiers returned fire after they were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades 35 miles north of the capital at Dujayl. “The attackers fled the area,” the Army said, and two soldiers were wounded.
About a dozen U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks since the start of May, mostly in Baghdad and two nearby areas to the west around Ramadi and Fallujah, and to the north around Balad, Baquba and Tikrit, Hussein’s hometown.
On Monday in the village of Khaldiyah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, U.S. troops staged a predawn raid on several houses. Soldiers said the raid came after an Army patrol guarding an ammunition dump was attacked the previous evening with rocket-propelled grenades.
U.S. troops and military police said they had arrested nine men and seized explosives and guns. The raid came after helicopter pilots spotted several ammunition boxes on rooftops.
Soldiers in Desert Scorpion rolled into the small towns of Ramadi and Khaldiyah at dawn, surrounding mud brick homes where intelligence tips and aerial surveillance had indicated that illicit weapons were being stockpiled.
But families in the generally impoverished area expressed outrage at the American raids and said most of the men detained were innocent.
“It was another big sweep based on very specific intelligence,” said Sgt. Scott Molina of the 3rd Infantry Division, which participated in the raids.
Family members of the detained men in Khaldiyah, a dusty farming town, said the Americans acted on poor intelligence.
“We have no guns, not even bullets,” said Dhikra Aftan, 30, wife of one of the arrested men, a retired Iraqi soldier named Ahmed Juma’a. “They kicked in our door and threw all our food on the ground.”
Standing amid empty cabinets and jumbled piles of clothes in her family’s only bedroom, she said it was impossible for her husband to be an anti-coalition rebel: He was missing a leg from the Iran-Iraq war. Juma’a still was in U.S. custody late Monday.
U.S. led astray, some say
Neighbors who had gathered at the house shook their heads somberly at the detritus of the search. Some speculated that score-settling informants had led the Americans astray.
“You cannot break into people’s houses because they have old ammunition boxes in their yards,” said Mohammed Kamel, 21, a security guard who lives nearby.
But the U.S. Army said that Khaldiyah is one of the places where U.S. convoys have been attacked by snipers persistently in recent weeks. And in an effort to defuse lingering anger over the crackdowns against local militants, U.S. troops have continued with high-profile humanitarian programs Monday. Engineers were repairing schools and providing free food to teachers.
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