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2005-03-24 Iraq-Jordan
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Largest terrorist training camp seized
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Iraqi and American forces killed 85 insurgents in a battle at what appeared to be the largest guerrilla training camp discovered in the war, officials said Wednesday.
Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and six were wounded in the battle at midday Tuesday.
The size and location of the camp, with scores of guerrillas living in tents and small buildings in a marshy lakeside encampment in western Iraq, revealed a new strategy among the insurgents, American military officials said.
It was the first time the military has come across insurgents organizing in such numbers in a remote rural location, similar to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, the officials said.
"A year ago, they preferred to organize in small cells in urban areas," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, which sent soldiers and attack helicopters to aid the hundreds of Iraqi commandos who raided the camp.
"Here, they organized into a large group in a remote site, perhaps under the impression that coalition forces wouldn't look for them there."
Along with munitions, training manuals and suicide bomb vests, the Iraqi and American forces discovered identification papers showing that some of the fighters had come from outside Iraq, Goldenberg said. He declined to identify the nationalities of the foreign insurgents, although Iraqi officials said they came from Arab countries.
The fighting came just two days after an American convoy fended off a highly organized ambush by 40 to 50 insurgents on the outskirts of Baghdad. The American military said 26 attackers were killed in that battle Sunday in the town of Salman Pak, 12 miles southeast of the capital.
It was the most ambitious assault against the American military since the Jan. 30 elections and showed that the guerrilla war was still burning fiercely two years after the Americans invaded Iraq and despite the high voter turnout in the elections.
"This string of successes does have positive repercussions in that it may convince Iraqis not supporting the insurgents — but not supporting the United States either — to perceive that the tide is turning and not go with the insurgents," said Nora Bensahel, a Washington-based Iraq analyst for Rand Corp.
But while it has been "a fairly successful few days," Bensahel cautioned that "there's a long, long way to go."
Iraqi officials also credited other successes to intelligence that has begun flowing from citizens heartened by the elections and emboldened by film footage aired on state television that shows captured insurgents confessing their roles in attacks.
"Before, the people had a neutral stance toward this issue," said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. "Now, they have turned against the terrorists."
Kadhim said insurgents initially operated in small cells but that crackdowns had caused them to change tactics and gather in larger groups. They chose the lakeside camp because of its terrain, he said.
"The area is full of marshes and lakes. It is hard to comb, and that's why the terrorists chose it," Kadhim said. "They used to use boats to get to the camp. It's difficult to get there, and to discover the location."
The battle on Tuesday began as members of the Interior Ministry's 1st Police Commando Battalion, acting on tips from residents of the area, approached the guerrilla camp by Lake Tharthar, Goldenberg said. It lies in a barren, arid region 100 miles northwest of Baghdad and straddles the border between Anbar and Salahuddin provinces, both insurgent strongholds dominated by the former governing Sunnis.
The training camp was so extensive that American and Iraqi troops were still searching it Wednesday, Goldenberg said.
Among the items seized were manuals with "techniques they would have used to train other insurgents to conduct operations," he said.
The 42nd Infantry Division, charged with securing the northern Sunni triangle, has never come across "such an organized facility for the Iraqi insurgent elements," the major said.
He estimated that 500 to 700 Iraqi commandos took part in the assault. The same unit has been working alongside the 42nd Infantry Division and was involved in a brief offensive sweep earlier this month in Samarra. In that operation, Iraqi commandos and American soldiers blocked off sections of the town to arrest suspected insurgent leaders, but they found that the leaders had gone into hiding or had fled. 
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Posted by Dan Darling 2005-03-24 4:40:50 AM||
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Posted by Poison Reverse 2005-03-24 4:21:12 PM||
2005-03-24 4:21:12 PM||
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