Goodbye to the safety of the green zone, hello to the danger of the new 'combat outposts'

[bigtree]

March 02, 2007

US bases troops in Baghdad suburbs

US soldiers are leaving their fortress-cities and establishing small outposts in the capital's most violent neighbourhoods in a major tactical shift under the two-week-old Baghdad security plan.

The Washington Post newspaper reported yesterday that the new policy, which calls for units to be placed full-time among the people they are trying to win over, was designed touncover more battlefield intelligence and reinforce the message that US troops would not allow militants unfettered freedom of movement.

US soldiers had opened 15 of about 30 planned "joint security stations" in the capital. They have also set up an unspecified number of smaller "combat outposts", the Post reported.

But the outposts posed new risks to US troop safety and required pulling soldiers off patrols to protect their lodgings.

"These little combat outposts, they are more exposed," Staff Sergeant Marcel Weaver, 35, told the Post.

"Your routes in here are very limited, and they're (insurgents) definitely watching us." A grenade "attack is coming, I can guarantee that".

more . . . http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21311011-2703,00.html


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[wakeme2008]

1. Let me guess out at "joint security stations" there will be only

MREs to eat. Little to do when you are "off"....

[louis-t]

2. Oh no, increase in troop deaths coming.

All to save the little prince from embarrassment.

[theoldman]

3. Most of the insurgents have already gone into hiding.

They will attack the outposts occasionally just to let us know that they are still around.