New offfensive against Al Quaeda in N Iraq - "Phantom Phoenix "- 9 US soldiers killed ..brings total KIA to 3921

In Iraq - Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets targeted an al- Qaida training camp with guided bomb unit-38s in Babil. The al-Qaida training camp was destroyed and the mission was reported successful by a JTAC.

Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets destroyed improvised explosive devices with GBU-31s and GBU-38s in Babil. During separate missions in the same area, Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons destroyed improvised explosive devices with GBU-38s and RAF GR-4 Tornados destroyed an IED with Enhance Paveway II munitions. A JTAC reported the missions as successful.

F-16s engaged enemy combatants by using GBU-12s and a GBU-38 in Samarra. The enemy combatants were engaging friendly forces with small arms fire. During the same mission, a Navy F/A-18 Hornet and an F/A-18F engaged enemy combatants with GBU-38s. A JTAC reported the missions as successful.

F-16s used GBU-12s to destroy a land bridge used by enemy combatants to transport weapons in Baqubah. The mission was reported as a success by a JTAC.

In total, coalition aircraft flew 65 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

All this may / or may not signal the end of (yet another) a new offensive targeting al Qaeda elements operating in the region - Code-named “Iron Harvest,” the operation dovetails neatly with the new "Operation Phantom Phoenix", a countrywide anti-insurgent offensive announced yesterday by Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, senior officers told reporters during a Baghdad news conference.


“Right now, the focus of all our enablers is on Diyala (province),” Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, commander of Multinational Division North, told reporters. Recently gathered intelligence is being used to identify and root out enemy networks in his area of operations, he said.

"Diyala province is important to al Qaeda", Gen. Hertling explained, "because the terrorist group considers it to be the center of their Islamic caliphate". Mosul is an important city, he added, because it is a hub to spokes of several vital roads that traverse northern Iraq.

“It is a very cosmopolitan city,” Hertling said of Mosul, noting the city’s multi-ethnic composition, which the wily, but perhaps a trifle world weary General claimed , " makes it an ideal hiding place for al Qaeda operatives".

6 US soldiers were killed and 4 wounded when A bomb which blew up in a house in Diyala today( 9.00EST) .The "house-borne improvised explosive device" blew up while they were conducting operations, a military statement said, without giving further details.... "Operation Phantom Phoenix" starting with a bang ????? !!!!

3 US soldiers were killed when they were attacked with small arms fire while conducting operations in neighbouring Salaheddin province yestterday.

This brings the total declared deaths in action in Iraq since the illegal invasion in 2003 to 3,921, according to an AFP tally based on figures from independent website www.icasualties.org.

Pic is of an old War Criminal who secretly bombed Laos and Cambodia , who on TV Nov 11th 2006 said "Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq"

“If you mean by ‘military victory’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.