GO GET THEM TEXAS RANGER.....

US troops in Iraq go on the offensive : By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD, June 20 (Reuters) - Thousands of U.S. troops swept into the northern and southern beltlands of Baghdad on Wednesday in simultaneous operations against militants that the military said was the start of a "summer of hard fighting" in Iraq. The operations signal a new phase in Washington's Iraq strategy. The military is going on the offensive to crush al Qaeda and other militants, who have defied a major crackdown to secure Baghdad by hiding out in the lush green farmlands and towns bordering the Iraqi capital. North of Baghdad, 10,000 mostly U.S. troops supported by attack helicopters, Stryker and Bradley armoured fighting vehicles pressed on with a two-day-old offensive against al Qaeda militants in volatile Diyala province. Thirty militants have been killed so far and large quantities of weapons seized, the military said. South of the capital, soldiers, including airborne troops in Chinook helicopters, killed four suspected insurgents, detained 62, seized 10 weapons caches and destroyed 17 boats, disrupting militant operations on the Tigris River, the U.S. military said. "Our forces are on the offensive ... but we face a summer of hard fighting," U.S. military spokesman Admiral Mark Fox said in Baghdad. The U.S. military launched the operations after the fifth and final reinforcing brigade of U.S. troops arrived in Iraq, completing its troop "surge" or build-up. "We are now seeing the true surge in full force," Fox said. "You are going to see operations simultaneously conducted and well co-ordinated through all the different provinces." U.S. President George W. Bush has sent 28,000 extra soldiers to help curb sectarian bloodshed and buy Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki time to reach a political accommodation with disaffected minority Sunni Arabs, who are locked in a cycle of violence with majority Shi'ite Muslims. The four-month-old security crackdown is focused on Baghdad, epicentre of the violence. While U.S. and Iraqi forces have reduced the levels of bloodshed in the capital, militants have shifted the fight to other provinces such as Diyala. Al Qaeda fighters have used Diyala as a launchpad for large-scale suicide and car bomb attacks on the capital, such as the one that struck a Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 87 and wounding over 200.

REVENGE ATTACKS

In the aftermath of the attack, three Sunni mosques were targeted in Iskandariya and Jbela, two towns south of Baghdad, police said on Wednesday. Two of the mosques were badly damaged. With the violence continuing to exact a deadly toll on Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, Bush is under growing pressure from Democrats in Congress to show progress in his new Iraq strategy or start pulling out troops, something he has rejected so far. The top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to deliver a report in September and make recommendations. Analysts say it will be a watershed in the unpopular four-year-old war. Fox said Operation Marne Torch, the offensive south of Baghdad, was aimed at preventing "insurgents from entering the southern Baghdad belt and ... moving bomb parts into Baghdad". The operation north of Baghdad, dubbed Operation Arrowhead Ripper, is focused on Baquba, one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq and an al Qaeda stronghold. Residents reported heavy clashes between U.S. troops and militants in districts on the western bank of the Diyala River that splits the city in two. Police Colonel Raghi Radh said masked members of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a Sunni insurgent group that has clashed with al Qaeda, were seen operating with U.S. troops and had set up base in deserted houses to interrogate suspects. Radh said the U.S. troops were being hampered by roadside bombs and were having to detonate them as they proceeded. "For the first time we feel that al Qaeda is weak. Up until two days ago we thought they would control everything over us," said resident Rami Abdullah.