As Deadly Month Ends, U.S. Forces Try to Catch Moving Target
As a deadly month comes to a close, U.S. forces are trying to keep up in Iraq.
May 30, 2007 — -- May has been the deadliest month in Iraq for American forces in 2½ years.
The number and quality of lethal attacks on U.S. troops are increasing, and this morning, the military said it thought that al Qaeda was responsible for the Memorial Day shooting down of a two-man U.S. helicopter as well as subsequent roadside bombings that killed six more U.S. troops on their way to the crash site.
The U.S. troop surge that sent thousands of additional troops to Iraq initially focused on Baghdad. But as Gen. David Petraeus made clear in a recent interview with ABC News, al Qaeda is now spreading its operations across Iraq — including Diyala, where the helicopter attack happened.
"We've seen al Qaeda make a run at some other places — Mosul, where police and soldiers have hung tough. Diyala province [is] very, very challenging," Petraeus said.
Even Baghdad's security requires U.S. troops to move into the countryside around the city.
"If you are going to secure Baghdad, you have to get into the belts that surround Baghdad," Petraeus said. "That's where the car bomb factories are. We've found a number of those. That's where the IEDs, weapons caches, leaders and all the rest of them are located."
The one bright spot is Anbar, where Sunni sheiks are starting to turn against al Qaeda extremists.
"You now have local security forces that are truly fighting for their local areas, and of course they can figure out who al Qaeda is a heck of a lot better then we can," Petraeus said.
For the military, the bottom line is that al Qaeda is a moving target. As soon as the United States changes its tactics, al Qaeda quickly finds new ways to hit back.
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