US forces launch offensive south of Baghdad

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq, Aug 15 (Reuters) US forces launched a major airborne offensive south of Baghdad today against fighters who have fled a security crackdown in and around the capital, the general commanding it said.

Operation Marne Husky is part of a countrywide push announced this week against both Sunni Arab and Shi'ite militants.

Major-General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces south of Baghdad, told Reuters about 4,000 of his men would be involved in the operation.

They would use air strikes and air-mobile infantry units to attack insurgents in the Tigris River valley south of the capital.

''It's an aviation-led operation. Ground forces are committed.

It's about 4,000 folks,'' he said on a visit to one of the bases from the operation will be launched.

Pointing on a map to the palm groves south of the capital in an area known as Arab Jabour, he said his troops had already pushed out many Sunni Arab militants in the past month and now planned to strike those who escaped southwards.

''Some of those folks squirted south,'' he said of the Sunni militants.

Washington sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq this year and has pushed them from big bases into neighbourhood outposts in an effort to reduce sectarian violence and defeat both Sunni Arab insurgents and hostile Shi'ite militia.

US officials say the military side of their strategy has worked well, especially against the Sunni Arabs who were their main enemies for most of the past four years but are now responsible for just a quarter of attacks on them.

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, is due to report to Congress next month on the success of his strategy.

This week US forces announced the launch of a countrywide offensive, Operation Phantom Strike.

Yesterday they announced the first part of Phantom Strike, known as Operation Lightning Hammer, which began with an airborne assault on the Diyala River valley north of the capital.

REUTERS RSA RN2121

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