The changing face of battle in Iraq

USA Today:

When the two Army Rangers slipped inside the house of suspected assassins in the dark on Christmas morning in Mosul, they expected a fight. They got one.

Two gunmen, using an 11-year-old boy as a shield, confronted the soldiers. One, a Ranger staff sergeant, shot them dead with his rifle. The boy was unharmed, according to an Army document that outlined the assault.

That clash — recounted to USA TODAY by four of the Rangers involved and confirmed by the military command in Baghdad — kicked off what U.S. military officials say was a 17-hour firefight that resulted in the deaths of 10 al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents, including the head of an assassination cell, a financier and a military leader. At least one fighter was from Saudi Arabia, according to the military account of the raid. Intelligence gleaned from the fight led to 10 follow-up operations, the Rangers' commander said.

The Dec. 25 raid occurred in what military officials say has become the most dangerous part of Iraq — Mosul and surrounding areas, about 200 miles north of Baghdad. The assault was a preview of a U.S.-led campaign to root out insurgents in Mosul and Diyala province who have targeted those who cooperate with Americans. It was part of a broader operation that led to the combat deaths of nine U.S. soldiers last week in Diyala.

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"The operation in Mosul is part of a plan to pursue al-Qaeda in Iraq tenaciously," Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said in a statement. "Though we have dealt serious blows to al-Qaeda this past year, its elements remain lethal and we must keep the pressure on them."

As the counterinsurgency strategy and the addition of 30,000 troops into the Baghdad area last year has helped to quiet much of the capital, insurgents have moved to the north and east, where fighting, as the Dec. 25 raid showed, can be fierce. More than half of all attacks in Iraq now occur in the north, according to the U.S. military command in Baghdad.

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"Mosul is a key strategic crossroads for the al-Qaeda both from a financing point of view and foreign-fighter facilitation networks," said Navy Rear Adm. Greg Smith, spokesman for the command in Baghdad, who confirmed the Rangers' account of the Dec. 25 fight.

"It's the one area in the north that al-Qaeda really wants to hang onto, as well as Diyala," Smith said.

Many attacks on Baghdad, he said, have been staged from Diyala.

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A tip prompted the Christmas raid, said Blake, the Rangers' company commander, a 32-year-old major from Manassas, Va. An Iraqi man had reported seeing al-Qaeda terrorists execute a man in public. The witness told U.S. troops where the extremists had gathered.

A few hours later, at 2:04 a.m., Pete, 26, of Marlboro, N.J., and his fellow Rangers, with M-4 rifles and night-vision goggles, arrived at the suspected insurgents' doorstep.

"You don't go into anything thinking the best-case scenario," Pete said. "Anytime you go through a door, you're expecting someone there with a gun waiting on you. Or someone with a suicide vest, grenade or whatever their weapon of choice is at that particular time. You're always thinking for the worst."

Six minutes later, he had killed the two gunmen, Pete said, and Rangers had found 10 women and children huddled in the back of the house. The Iraqis conflicting accounts of how many men remained in the house made the soldiers suspicious.

Lashaun, 27, a sergeant first class from Chester, Va., searched a bathroom and noticed a nylon strap protruding from the bottom of a shower basin.

"That's when I called in Pete and told him to help hold security on the shower basin as I pulled the strap out of the floor," Lashaun said. "That's when the basin came up and revealed a hidden passageway to a hidden bunker."

When he rolled back a concrete block that was sitting on rails, gunfire erupted. Pete estimated the entrance at 2-by-2 feet, barely large enough for a Ranger with 45 pounds of gear to pass through. Lashaun and Pete fired into the hole and backed out of the room.

Pete tossed in a grenade.

After the grenade exploded, the Rangers moved back into the shower room, Lashaun said. Suddenly, he said, grenades started flying back at them.

Lashaun said he saw one grenade bounce, so he and another Ranger dove through a door before it exploded. Pete and the Ranger retreated to a different room.

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They got the women and children out of the house and called in air attacks. Going back in after the air attacks they found more al Qaeda troops wearing bomb belts trying to sneak out. After killing a few more they backed out again and called in the F-16s. As scary as the action was the only casualties were those of the enemy. The enemy is running out of places to run to and is having to stand and fight in Diyala and Mosul. His destruction continues.