In what American military officials said was the largest Iraqi-led operation to date and evidence that the country's fledgling army was up and running, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers fanned out Sunday and Monday in a dangerous western suburb here, arresting 437 people they accuse of having ties to the insurgency. The officials said Tuesday that more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and special police commandos carried out the operation, which was aimed at rooting out insurgents and closing down car bomb assembly lines in Abu Ghraib, which is predominantly Sunni Arab and has been a hotbed of insurgent activity for months.The raids were the latest in an attempt by Iraq's new government to try to strike back at the insurgency that has killed more than 500 people since the government was formed several weeks ago. But recent large-scale raids, particularly by Shiite and Kurdish security forces, have raised fears in Sunni areas that nets are being cast too widely, catching many innocent Iraqis along with those who have ties to insurgents. Americans have planned and fought virtually all major military offensives in Iraq in the past two years, including in Falluja, west of Baghdad, and more recently in the desert near the border with Syria, with Iraqi forces arriving later to help keep security in the cities.
But American commanders have been training Iraqi troops to take control eventually, and the raids, which have also been conducted in other cities, move the country closer to that goal, American military officials said. The number of trained and equipped Iraqi troops has also risen, to 165,219, about double the number last September. "Ultimately, countries need to defend themselves," said Col. Mark A. Milley, commander of the Second Brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, which worked with the Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib raids. "Winning this thing depends on the performance of Iraq's security forces."
On Tuesday, soldiers from the Muthanna Brigade, made up almost exclusively of Kurds and Shiites, walked a victory lap on a wide trash-strewn dirt road in Abu Ghraib lined with car repair shops and the occasional furniture store. Just days before, police officers and soldiers in the area were fired on almost without a break, soldiers said, but on Tuesday, it was safe enough for a walk. "It was a terrible area," said Staff Col. Saman Talabani, the deputy commander of the brigade. "Now people are telling me, 'It's the first day I can eat breakfast very easily.' "
The raids were conducted almost exclusively by Iraqis, but with the support of 1,500 American soldiers. The Americans helped to cordon off areas, while Iraqis entered in small pickup trucks with gunners in the rear and began entering houses and buildings. The Iraqi soldiers arrested people suspected of having ties to the insurgency. There was rare resistance, soldiers said, with a few firefights each day. "They were chickens," Colonel Talabani said.
At the urging of an American military adviser, the brigade commander, Brig. Gen. Aziz Swady, a Shiite from Samawa, gave a few details about how the Iraqis gathered the intelligence to find their targets, saying much of it had come from local residents. Some residents ventured out of their homes on Tuesday, offering Pepsis and cups of water to the soldiers. "Iraqi people want to help now," General Aziz said in a breezy office at an old helicopter base for the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein that will serve as the brigade's permanent base. "We have many friends in the area."
Colonel Talabani acknowledged that some of those swept up in the raids were probably not guilty of anything, and said that those people would be released as the group was interrogated. The detainees will then be transferred to the custody of the Interior Ministry. One local resident, a 19-year-old vegetable seller who gave his name only as Ali, told Colonel Talabani that his friend had been arrested and had no ties to the insurgency.
Even so, the raids seemed to have had an effect, at least in the area the soldiers patrolled Tuesday. Last week, Colonel Milley said, soldiers in that area encountered enemy fire or bombs 10 to 15 times a day. Since the raids began, he said, the daily number dropped to two to four. Islamists said in an Internet posting on Tuesday night that insurgent networks had not been affected by the raids. But Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group linked to the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the soldiers looked only for Sunni Arabs in their raids and ignored Shiites, according to a Web site that tracks such messages.