U.S. routing al-Qaida out of Baqouba

Published Friday, June 22, 2007

BAQOUBA, Iraq (AP) - American attack helicopters fired on al-Qaida militants trying to slip past an Iraqi checkpoint today, killing 17 of them in the fourth day of an offensive to oust the fighters entrenched in this city an hour’s drive north of Baghdad.

More than three-quarters of the city’s al-Qaida leadership fled before the Americans moved in to Baqouba this week, U.S. officials said today, but not before drone planes spotted fighters planting dozens of roadside bombs on the main highway into the city, capital of volatile and extremely dangerous Diyala province.

Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al-Qaida fighters remain.

"They’re clearly in hiding, no question about it. But they’re a hardline 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," Bednarek said today.

A day earlier, operation battalion commanders met at a bombed-out hospital here to plot their next moves.

Soldiers spread maps across rubble and pulled up charred concrete blocks as stools inside the crumbling building. Controlled explosions of roadside bombs boomed in the distance. Soldiers laden down by body armor mopped sweat from their faces.

"It’s 24-7 for us here, and it’s probably the same for our adversary as well," Bednarek said. "It’s house-to-house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer - and it’s also cars, vans - we’re searching every one of them."

The al-Qaida leaders abandoned a field hospital, complete with oxygen tanks, heart defibrillators and other sophisticated medical equipment, said Col. Steve Townsend, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. They also left behind at least seven homes booby-trapped with trip wires, said Townsend, 47, from Griffin, Ga.

U.S. attack helicopters firing missiles killed the 17 al-Qaida fighters today as the militants tried to bypass Iraqi police and infiltrate a Shiite enclave northwest of Baqouba, the military said in a statement.

More than three-quarters of the senior al-Qaida leaders holed up escaped as the offensive began Monday, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. ground forces commander said on yesterday during a one-day trip to the battlefield.