For G.I.’s in Iraq, a Harrowing Day Facing a Trap
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
New York Times
BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 — The enemy was a phantom who never showed his face but transformed a neighborhood into a network of houses rigged to explode.
And the soldiers from Comanche Company’s First Platoon confronted this elaborate and deadly trap.
The platoon’s push began shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday, as American forces continued their effort to wrest the western section of this city north of Baghdad from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Tracer rounds zipped through the air as the soldiers fired antitank weapons, mortar shells and machine guns at the abandoned houses they planned to inspect across the street.
They calculated that the firepower would blow up any bombs the insurgents might have planted in the houses, while providing cover so the first squads could move south across the thoroughfare.
The use of house bombs is not a new trick, but as the soldiers were to learn, the scale was daunting. The entire neighborhood seemed to be a trap.
After darting across the road, Sgt. Gerard Mennitto, 23, checked the front door of a partly constructed house and peered through a window looking for telltale signs of enemy explosives. The house was free of explosives and the operation seemed to be going as planned.
But there were a few early indications that the bomb threat in the area might be more challenging than the Americans had expected. The street the soldiers had raced across was strewn with slender copper wires, which the insurgents used to set off buried bombs powerful enough to upend armored vehicles.
(The rest is here.)
New York Times
BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 — The enemy was a phantom who never showed his face but transformed a neighborhood into a network of houses rigged to explode.
And the soldiers from Comanche Company’s First Platoon confronted this elaborate and deadly trap.
The platoon’s push began shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday, as American forces continued their effort to wrest the western section of this city north of Baghdad from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Tracer rounds zipped through the air as the soldiers fired antitank weapons, mortar shells and machine guns at the abandoned houses they planned to inspect across the street.
They calculated that the firepower would blow up any bombs the insurgents might have planted in the houses, while providing cover so the first squads could move south across the thoroughfare.
The use of house bombs is not a new trick, but as the soldiers were to learn, the scale was daunting. The entire neighborhood seemed to be a trap.
After darting across the road, Sgt. Gerard Mennitto, 23, checked the front door of a partly constructed house and peered through a window looking for telltale signs of enemy explosives. The house was free of explosives and the operation seemed to be going as planned.
But there were a few early indications that the bomb threat in the area might be more challenging than the Americans had expected. The street the soldiers had raced across was strewn with slender copper wires, which the insurgents used to set off buried bombs powerful enough to upend armored vehicles.
(The rest is here.)
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