U.S. Troops Enter Eastern Baghdad as New Push Begins

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 — American troops locked down a large industrial area of eastern Baghdad on Sunday while Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, without indicating how he would do it, vowed to speed the deployment of Iraqi forces throughout the war-ravaged capital.American commanders described the operation in the area, the Rusafa district, as an early taste of the large-scale sweeps expected in eastern Baghdad to take back some measure of control from militias. Soldiers from the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, from Ft. Lewis, Wash., were fired on by insurgents with automatic rifles. The soldiers detained 10 Iraqis while searching for a car-bomb manufacturing site in the area, a violent sectarian fault line between a Shiite enclave and the insurgent-ridden Sunni neighborhood of Fadhil.



The operations in eastern Baghdad are to be a centerpiece of the so-called surge of 21,000 troops that many here view as a last-ditch effort to save the country from all-out civil war. Eastern Baghdad “is a focal point for us right now,” said Brig. Gen. John Campbell, deputy commander of coalition troops in Baghdad. American-led forces say they have conducted 3,400 patrols and detained 140 suspects in the past week.Mr. Maliki, who is under immense pressure from his Shiite backers who say their neighborhoods are becoming increasingly vulnerable to attacks by Sunni insurgents, said Sunday that he had ordered an accelerated deployment of Iraqi soldiers and policemen to areas considered sanctuaries for insurgents and militias. “It will not start in just one area, but in all areas at the same time,” he said.But it remains unclear just how fast that deployment will take place, because only a portion of the Iraqi forces called for under the new Baghdad security plan are in position. And if the Iraqis who accompanied American soldiers during the 14-hour mission on Sunday were an accurate barometer, most are skeptical that the latest plan will make much difference. Similar operations in the past have largely failed. Follow the link for more - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?ref=middleeast&pagewanted=print