Militants Fade As Attacks Begin

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS Los Angeles Times

Published: Jun 21, 2007

BAQOUBA, IRAQ - Islamic militants hid their guns and blended with locals fleeing a major U.S. offensive, and some forced truckers to cart their weapons and ammunition out of the area in advance of the dragnet, residents said Wednesday.

Their accounts, given as U.S. soldiers on foot and in armored vehicles pushed down eerily empty streets of this provincial capital, seemed to confirm a pattern that has bedeviled U.S. attempts to hunt down insurgents across Iraq.

Confronted with an assault, many drop their weapons and melt away, only to return when U.S. forces turn their attention elsewhere.

"It is frustrating," said Lt. Col. Bruce Antonia, commander of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, one of three battalions participating in the current effort north of Baghdad.

The operation, involving about 10,000 U.S. troops in west Baqouba and other parts of Diyala province, was launched early Tuesday. It is aimed at driving pro-Qaida Sunni Arab militants from Baqouba, which they have declared capital of their self-styled Islamic state, and at halting the flow of bombs into Baghdad.

The United States insists that unlike previous major offensives, this one and others going on simultaneously in other parts of Iraq will succeed because troops will remain in the area for months, if necessary, rather than moving on. Since President Bush's influx of an additional 28,500 troops began in February, they appear to have made little headway in the effort to stabilize Iraq.

By Wednesday afternoon, military officials said 41 suspected insurgents had been killed and five homes rigged with explosives had been destroyed.

The U.S. military also announced the deaths of four soldiers in fighting in Numaniyah, 75 miles southeast of Baghdad. A British soldier was killed after an attack in Basra, the British defense ministry said. Nationwide, police and morgue officials said 60 people died in sectarian-related violence, 32 in Baghdad.

Advancing U.S. troops found bomb-making factories and weapons stashes, but most insurgents apparently disappeared. Residents said masked gunmen who haunted their streets had stashed their arms and hidden among the locals fleeing in advance of the operation.

Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert on counterinsurgencies, said the problem of insurgents slipping away before major operations is not new. "Regrettably it is a practice that has existed throughout our involvement in Iraq. It was a problem in Vietnam as well. Their strength is their mobility. ... They don't stand and fight. Their survival is predicated on elusiveness," he said.

James Phillips, an expert on Middle East terrorism and insurgency at the Heritage Foundation, said even if large operations such as this one did not capture many insurgents, they could disrupt their activities.

In Baghdad, the death toll from the truck bombing of the Shiite Khulani mosque on Tuesday rose to 87. Army Brig. Qassim al-Moussawi said the truck had about 50 cooking gas cylinders and about 1,100 pounds of TNT.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.