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| Hunting for militants: Spc. Nicholas Woodard of Sylva, N.C. stands guard near a destroyed Shiite house in Hussein al-Hamadi,
Iraq. Scott Peterson/Getty IMages |
US-Iraqi troops sweep Al Qaeda village haven
Soldiers find major weapons caches, a bunker, and an insurgent expense report in Diyala Province.
from the January 18, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
"It's dangerous," warns another older man standing at his metal gate, his family out of sight. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't know anything about Al Qaeda. They come here with covered faces, and they go."
The rubble from Shiite houses is not the only thing left behind by Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters, who villagers say frequently come from the east side of the river.
Over three days, US forces come across several weapons caches, take gun and mortar fire from across the river, and call in airstrikes to destroy a bunker with a grass-covered trapdoor and bedrolls in it. Neither the weapons caches nor the bunker are rigged to blow, suggesting the militants never expected these sites between the village and the river to be found.
As troops move through the reeds and the pomegranate and citrus groves along the banks of the river, they find rich pickings. Caches include rockets, antitank mines, 15 hand-held radios, 3,000 feet of detonation cord, 25 remote-fire initiation devices, bulk explosives, and a video camcorder with three tapes. "We could have spent a month out there, searching and finding stuff. There is so much," says Staff Sgt. Chris Jackson, a US Air Force explosives expert from Albuquerque, N.M. "To find a cache like that in this day and age is a big deal, because [AQI] are so much better at running and hiding."
The Americans detain one man who pops up on one of their watch lists, provided by a local sheikh. Another man is taken in after several rolls of copper wire (often used in making roadside bombs) are found in his house. At one point during the sweep, a man is handcuffed and his eyes covered with a band of cloth after telling several conflicting stories about the flatbed truck in his driveway.
"I swear by God I am not Al Qaeda!" the man pleads with the senior Iraqi officer. At first he claims masked men dropped off the vehicle, hid the license plates, and then disappeared. He says "the terrorists" also took his identity card.
But then an identity card appears. It's for the Diyala Province health authority, valid throughout 2008. And as the arrest is made, the man tries to throw off his jacket. Inside the pocket are the keys for the truck. "A friend gave it to me!" the man insists. The Iraqi and US troops laugh at the changing story. A woman and group of children wail as the man is led away.
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