Battle of Baquba
There’s a major battle going on in Iraq, but if you scan the home pages of cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc., you wouldn’t know it. Foxnews.com has it of course as well as abcnews.com, so some are reporting it.
It looks like Gen. Petraeous finally has the surge forces in place to go on the offensive and 10K US troops are closing on Baquba in the Diyala province. Since the surge began (and local tribes started to turn against Al Quaeda), AQ has withdrawn from parts of Baghdad and Anbar province and moved into Diyala and turned Baquba into thier stronghold. Now we’re going after AQ.
Michael Yon is an independent reporter/blogger who is embedded with US forces in Iraq. If you want to find out what is going on in Iraq directly, you should read Michael’s blog. He reports the good and bad, the failures and successes without the filtering of the big media:
Northeast of Baghdad, innocent civilians are being asked to leave Baquba. More than 1,000 AQI fighters are there, with perhaps another thousand adjuncts. Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004. They are ready for us. Giant bombs are buried in the roads. Snipers—real snipers—have chiseled holes in walls so that they can shoot not from roofs or windows, but from deep inside buildings, where we cannot see the flash or hear the shots. They will shoot for our faces and necks. Car bombs are already assembled. Suicide vests are prepared.
The enemy will try to herd us into their traps, and likely many of us will be killed before it ends. Already, they have been blowing up bridges, apparently to restrict our movements. Entire buildings are rigged with explosives. They have rockets, mortars, and bombs hidden in places they know we are likely to cross, or places we might seek cover. They will use human shields and force people to drive bombs at us. They will use cameras and make it look like we are ravaging the city and that they are defeating us. By the time you read this, we will be inside Baquba, and we will be killing them. No secrets are spilling here.
Go read Michael’s dispatch from Baquba at http://michaelyon-online.com/wp/be-not-afraid.htm
