US, Iraqi forces launch major offensive targeting insurgent haven

AL SHAMS, Iraq -- About 1,000 US and Iraqi troops launched a major offensive at dawn yesterday in Diyala Province, an increasingly violent zone east of Baghdad that has become a haven and training ground for Sunni Arab insurgents.

The target of the strike is an isolated landscape of farms and irrigation canals riddled with weapons caches, safe houses, and training ranges, US officials said.

The insurgents, however, appeared to be well prepared for the slow-moving assault. Smoke signals and flares arced into the sky as a column of tanks and Humvees from the Third Heavy Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division pressed into an insurgents' redoubt. US military officials said spotters used those techniques to warn guerrillas in the area.

Insurgents also had dug deep trenches into the roads and sabotaged canal bridges. US commanders said they suspected the obstacles were designed to divert approaching vehicles toward roadside bombs.

Four hours into the operation, an explosion ripped through the front end of a Humvee but did not penetrate the cabin. The US soldiers inside were not injured, but the wreckage blocked the road.

Commanders kept details of the operation from their Iraqi counterparts until hours before the operation began, out of fear that information would leak to insurgents, according to Colonel David W. Sutherland, commander of the Third Heavy Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, which assumed control of Diyala in October. Sutherland said he suspected that leaks from Iraqi soldiers compromised previous counterinsurgency operations.

The rendezvous was a chaotic scene, with dozens of armored vehicles jammed into a checkpoint. US officers shouted commands in English in an attempt to make them fall in line. Several Iraqi vehicles started off in the wrong direction.

"No, this way, this way," shouted a US soldier.

By the time the joint force swept into six villages to conduct searches, there were no military-aged men to be seen.

Diyala has become a sectarian killing ground in recent months, with attacks on civilians more than doubling since February.

Meanwhile, 89 people were reported killed yesterday in Iraq's continuing violence. The dead included 13 people who were killed by two car bombs that exploded at a Baghdad gas station and a US soldier killed in western Baghdad.