Update to yesterday’s item; edited to highlight new information.
Based on intelligence collected on the ground, U.S. infantry set a number of traps all over Baghdad. Several of those traps — monitored from the air and known as NAIs or Named Areas of Interest — were activated almost simultaneously Wednesday night.
Can anyone think of a better "translation" for the acronym "NAI?" Post your submissions in the Comments section.
In the most dramatic action, about a dozen Bradley armored vehicles used 25mm cannons to destroy a warehouse used by anti-U.S. forces in southern Baghdad. A special forces AC-130 Spectre gunship also took part from the air, targeting the warehouse with precise fire.
According to military sources, the other attacks were: — U.S. soldiers observed a group of people firing several mortar rounds from a truck, who then tried to drive away. An AH-64 Apache helicopter was called in to follow the fugitives and it fired on the vehicle, hitting it. Two terrorists were killed and five others were captured. Plus, Americans seized an 82mm mortar.
— Infantrymen saw another enemy approach and fire three mortar rounds, aimed at harassing U.S. forces. Americans opened fire using small arms and a Bradley armored vehicle. The vehicle was hit several times but managed to disappear in traffic on a highway.
Take note: the U.S. troops did not just shoot up the highway and kill a bunch of bystanders.
— An American artillery unit fired 12 rounds of 155mm howitzers against an insurgent mortar team that had fired off a few shots in the direction of the "green zone," where the central Coalition military and civilian authority compound is located in Baghdad. This two-square-mile area had been hit by harassing mortar fire on a number of occasions during the past week. Fox has updated the story again just in the time since I started posting it:
On Thursday, Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said several insurgents also were killed when Bradley fighting vehicles and paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division attacked a mortar crew. |