Happy Ramadan <--sarcasm

Baghdad rocked as troops battle guerrillas

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces are battling insurgents in southern Baghdad, shaking the Iraqi capital into the early hours with some of the heaviest explosions and gunfire in weeks.

Witnesses reported hearing the blasts kilometres away and some residents said U.S bombers were in action. The U.S. military would only confirm its troops were involved in Operation Iron Justice, part of the new tactics adopted to counter a relentless insurgency.

More than 200 U.S. soldiers have been killed since Washington declared major combat over on May 1 in attacks officials have blamed on loyalists of ousted President Saddam Hussein and foreign fighters......

.....EXTREMISTS

American officials said they hoped the arrests of the Muslim militants would help lead them to Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam's top aides and the most-wanted former Iraqi official still sought by U.S. authorities.

"We detained three individuals in the extremist religious organisations with ties to...Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri," Lieutenant-Colonel William Adamson, head of a U.S. task force in Baquba, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Al-Douri, who has a $10 million reward on his head, is number six on a list of 55 Iraqis most wanted by the United States and is suspected of playing a role in directing insurgents.

The arrests raise important questions on ties between Saddam loyalists and Islamic militants suspected of crossing Iraq's borders to wage holy war on occupation troops.

The detentions over the past 24 hours were significant because they point to a tangible link between Saddam loyalists and Muslim militants.

Adamson said arrests after Saddam's capture would make it easier to track down more guerrillas.

But there was no sign that violence will ease anytime soon. More at link.

A couple of things stand out from this sample.

1) The fighting is still fierce, and there is no end in sight

2) Another in a long string of tenuous links to the terror 'organisation de l'heure.'

Then there is this:

Blast Rocks Baghdad Near Sheraton Hotel

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad on Wednesday night, and the U.S. military said it was a rebel rocket-propelled grenade that narrowly missed the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel.

"We can confirm that an RPG was fired at the Sheraton but missed," Capt. Jason Beck of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, the unit that controls Baghdad, told The Associated Press.

"The other loud explosion are effects from Operation Iron Grip. We are firing on targets in the general area," he said.

At the Sheraton, guests called by satellite telephone, said they were fine, and a hotel worker in the hotel lobby said the upper floors had been checked and it had not been hit. "That wasn't our hotel," he said.

A firefight followed the blast, which occurred at about 8:15 p.m. local time and appeared to come from some distance behind the heavily barricaded hotel, a haven for Westerners on Abu Nawas Street, on the east bank of the Tigris River.

The 1st Armored Division unleashed a barrage farther from central Baghdad before dawn Wednesday and said it was aimed at anti-American insurgents. Troops raided homes and arrested a Sunni sheik said to be close to Iraq's most wanted man. A string of separate bombings killed six civilians and three American soldiers.

The military would not say what it was targeting in Baghdad, but Maj. John Frisbie of the 1st Armored Division indicated troops were still acting on information gleaned from the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein, as well as information from residents.

"We continue to gain intelligence from the neighborhoods here and the residents of Baghdad who are seemingly frustrated at these continued (rebel) attacks," Frisbie said.

Military commanders said the number of daily attacks on U.S. troops had slowed in recent weeks, even before Saddam's capture _ but north of Baghdad, three soldiers were killed Wednesday as they traveled in a convoy near Samarra.

In the northern city of Irbil, a car bomb exploded in front of the Kurdish Interior Ministry, killing at least five people, hospital officials said. About 50 people were injured.

Irbil also houses the Kurdish parliament. Under U.S.-led aerial protection, Iraqi Kurds, ethnically distinct from the majority Arabs, have ruled an autonomous Switzerland-sized stretch of northern Iraq since the end of the Gulf War more than a decade ago.

Kircout Ali, a civilian who was at the scene of the blast in Irbil, said the bomb exploded at barricades in front of the Interior Ministry. At least four passengers in a car beside the booby-trapped car were killed, Ali said.

At a news briefing, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said only two people died in Irbil, including the bomber and a civilian, and said the blast brought down the protective wall in front of the building.

Kimmitt also said two Iraqi police were killed in an attack in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, and that two suspected assailants were detained. Much more at link.

I think that there is some overlap between the two stories, and the second article really delineates the danger of the situation. I can't help but wonder if the reality is that Iraq is splintering around it's three main populations. This is just awful.