Road work in Sadr City

NY Times:

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As the platoon drove along that night, it was not clear if his luck would hold out. A building in the distance was smoldering from a previous battle. It had been hit by an M1 tank after American soldiers concluded that militiamen were using it as a perch.

A Husky, an ungainly looking vehicle with a large mechanical arm, led the way on the north side of the road. The arm of the Husky is equipped with a camera, and the vehicle has an outsize blower to puff away trash that might conceal a bomb. It was driven by Specialist Paul Williamson, who was encased in a small armored cab.

The militias are well practiced at employing the bombs. One tactic is to place a bomb, or a decoy, in a visible portion of the road to distract the soldiers and divert them into the path of a powerful hidden explosive.

Constant attacks by Apache helicopters and Predator drones have taken their toll on the militia fighters, who often do not have enough time to carefully camouflage the bombs they try to sneak into the streets the Americans have already cleared.

“The ones that are hard to find are in the areas we have not been in yet,” said Lieutenant Roberts, alluding to streets like Al Quds.

As the vehicles proceeded, Specialist Williamson spied an overturned wheelbarrow, which he flipped over with the Husky’s mechanical arm, the soldiers recalled. Behind it was a block draped with a T-shirt. Wires appeared to be attached to the block, a telltale sign of an explosively formed penetrator set to be fired by a hidden triggerman.

The Husky pulled back, and members of an explosive ordnance team climbed out of their vehicle and placed a small robot on the ground to take a closer look. The robot was equipped with a camera, and the team members maneuvered it forward to confirm the find.

Gunfire erupted from an alley and the robot began zigging and zagging as a soldier responded with a .50-caliber gun. The robot survived the cross-fire, Specialist Guzman explained, and it was sent forward again, this time with a chunk of C-4 explosive, which it placed to destroy the bomb. The blast sent a shudder through Specialist Guzman’s vehicle and splattered it with a cloud of dust.

But the night was far from over. A bomb exploded near the road-clearance vehicles to the rear, but it missed them. Then a large bomb was discovered to the front, hidden this time inside a green can that was covered with an empty sandbag. The explosive ordnance team again deployed the robot to destroy it.

As the soldiers were turning around to return to base, two mortar rounds landed with resounding booms, one of which was close enough to puncture a tire of one of the vehicles. It was a slow leak and the route clearance team managed to drive back without further incident.

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It is interesting to see how the US troops have adapted to the enemy tactics. The equipment they are using now was not really in the inventory when the war began. The evolution of tactics and equipment by the US has made the militia's way of war very frustrating for the enemy. The disparity in the casualties are rarely mentioned but the ratio is very favorable to our side. The current fight is on the Mahdi militia's turf. It makes it more difficult for them to do their attacks on the Green zone and it forces them on to the defensive.