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In a Desolate Iraqi Village, War Is Far From Over
By MARC SANTORA
SOUTH BALAD RUZ DISTRICT, Iraq—Cpl. Phillip Buck stopped in his tracks. And then took three careful steps back, the parched earth cracking beneath his feet like fresh ice over snow.
Ten yards in front of him, an Iraqi soldier was inspecting a possible booby trap in a desolate village deserted long ago.
“You never know what he is playing with,” said Corporal Buck, 27, his eyes squarely on the soldier.
Moments later, an explosion rang out less than a half-mile away. An unsuspecting Iraqi had detonated a pressure-triggered roadside bomb. His legs were ripped off, and after a brief struggle for air, he died in the dirt.
Around a mostly peaceful Iraq, Americans are withdrawing from the cities, doing less soldiering and more social welfare, like establishing factories and engaging in civics lessons.
But this corner of Diyala Province, north of Baghdad and near the Iranian border, is one of those pockets across northern and eastern Iraq where the war is still being fought much as it was two years ago, when the “surge” of American troops began.
Here violence remains high, the Sunni insurgency never defeated. As American troops withdraw, such strongholds could threaten the fragile gains in Iraq. And so the American military has mounted one of its few current combat missions to try to finally eradicate what it describes as toughened insurgents.
“This is one of the few burning embers of Al Qaeda in Diyala,” said Lt. Col. Lou Rago, who commands Task Force 3-66 Armor, which he said was the only full battalion in Iraq still tasked solely with classic counterinsurgency combat. “And if it is not snuffed out it could reignite.”
American and Iraqi soldiers are still sweeping villages, raiding homes, countering mortar attacks and struggling to dismantle a network of explosives laid by insurgents to protect their sanctuary.
“This is the retro war in Iraq,” Colonel Rago said. “Other commanders are doing what they should be doing in Iraq in 2009. I am not.”
In most of the cities, the small combat outposts created as part of the surge are being handed over to Iraq as Americans withdraw to large bases in advance of large-scale troop reductions.
But in South Balad Ruz, American soldiers are constructing a new combat outpost, sleeping on cots in makeshift tents in the desert.
Since the latest operation to clear out the insurgents began here eight weeks ago, Iraqi and American vehicles have been struck by roadside bombs more than 30 times. A dozen Iraqi soldiers have been killed and three American soldiers have been seriously wounded.
And for every bomb that exploded, the soldiers have found and defused two more.
In the largely rural area overseen by Colonel Rago, only about 1,000 residents remain in dozens of villages after Shiites fled and insurgents kidnapped and killed dozens of Sunnis. Americans have occasionally started missions in the area over the past six years, but there was never a sustained presence.
After each operation, insurgents returned.
“The enemy essentially had free rein in here,” Colonel Rago said. “This is their bedroom.”
The combat outpost in the area—named Diamond, after Staff Sgt. Sean D. Diamond, who was killed in February—marked the end of that era, Colonel Rago said.
He estimated that only a few hundred fighters were left. “But what they lack in numbers, they make up for in talent,” he said.
In addition to the 800 American combat troops in the operation, there are 120 engineers and members of logistical teams in the area, as well as some 3,800 Iraqi troops.
The Americans are taking the lead in clearing the roads.
Capt. Daniel Godbey, 37, said that on one of his first missions, the vehicle in front of his was struck by a roadside bomb.
“I saw the truck lift right off the ground and land again and I thought, ‘Oh no,’ ” he said. “But everyone walked out, their ears ringing but O.K.”
Captain Godbey was in Iraq before, in 2004, and did tours in Afghanistan before returning, but it was his first mission in the armored vehicle known as an MRAP, which stands for for mine-resistant, ambush-protected.
Colonel Rago said that without the trucks, used here since 2007, he would have lost as many as 20 men already.
But what matters most, he said, is simply a persistent presence. And he said he believed that the insurgents also understood the importance of that.
“These guys are going to fight,” he said. “And they are going to die.”