Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al-Qaeda fighters remained in the city after some of their leaders fled, and that fighting would prove fierce. "They're clearly in hiding, no question about it," he said. "But they're a hard-line group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can. They will not go any further. They will fight to the death. There have been houses that were used by al-Qaeda as safe houses ... their entire structures rigged with massive explosives." On Tuesday, US-led forces launched Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Iraq's Diyala province, one of its biggest deployments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Not far from Baqouba yesterday, US attack helicopters killed 17 suspected al-Qaeda gunmen on the outskirts of the town of Khalis, the US military said, bringing to 68 the number of militants killed so far in the operation. The military said the gunmen had been acting suspiciously around an Iraqi police patrol.
Baqouba is the capital of Diyala province. The region has long been an al-Qaeda hotbed, but attacks against US and Iraqi forces have soared since a four-month-old US-led security crackdown in Baghdad and operations elsewhere prompted many al-Qaeda militants and other gunmen to seek sanctuary in Diyala. The campaign is part of a broader offensive involving tens of thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers in simultaneous operations in Baghdad, and to the south and west of the capital.
Gen Bednarek said the fight against al-Qaeda in Diyala also involved local Sunni Arabs who opposed the US but who wanted to end al-Qaeda domination of their communities. He said this included fighters from the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a large Sunni Arab insurgent group that has fallen out with al-Qaeda over its indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Gen Bednarek said US forces were making some grisly discoveries in Baqouba. He said residents led soldiers to a house in the west of the city that appeared to have been used to hold, torture and kill hostages. Soldiers destroyed it. "When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal," Gen Bednarek said.
US military commanders have said the combined operations were taking advantage of the completion of a build-up of American forces in Iraq to 156,000 soldiers.
US President George Bush has sent 28,000 extra troops, mainly to Baghdad, to help curb sectarian bloodshed and buy time for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Michael Yon, an American internet journalist embedded with US troops at Baqouba, wrote: "The combat in Baqouba should soon reach a peak. Al-Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. "The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al-Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Our guys are winning. Al-Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummelled to death in this town. A big fight seems to be brewing."