Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe

Sophisticated Insurgent Tactics Raise U.S. Death Toll in Northeast Province

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post

BAQUBAH, Iraq -- The pale blue light inside the Chinook helicopter cast a faint glow on the young soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, tensed for battle. They crossed themselves and bowed their heads.

The battalion was flying in the middle of the night toward an Iraqi village, one unexplored by American troops and believed to be dominated by Sunni insurgents. The troops had heard the stories -- militant camps hidden in palm groves, underground torture prisons, sniper teams on rooftops -- and were ready for a fight. As a lone soldier had roared on the tarmac amid the thudding rotors: "Battle hard!"

But when the 600 soldiers descended on Buhriz al-Barra with machine guns and night-vision lenses early Monday, they found the village largely devoid of men. Soldiers fanned out from the rocky field where they had landed, combing riverbanks, palm groves and hundreds of concrete and cinder-block homes, only to find many abandoned and others inhabited only by nervous women and children.

"The biggest dry hole ever," said 1st Lt. James Brandon Prisock, 28, a platoon leader on the operation, after several hours in the village. "These guys all took off. They knew we were coming."

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