From Deseret News archives:
Iraqi forces to dig trenches around Baghdad to stop insurgent infiltration
To help halt that bloodshed, more U.S. troops have been shifted to Baghdad from the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, a senior U.S. commander said.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine was killed Friday in Anbar province, and an American soldier was killed Thursday evening by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, the military said. Five American soldiers died Thursday, making it an especially bloody day for U.S. forces.
A U.S. soldier is missing from a suicide bombing 30 miles west of Baghdad that killed two of those soldiers, U.S. military officials said.
The soldier "has been reported as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown," the military said, without elaborating.
Neither U.S. military officials in Iraq nor in Washington would say whether they believed the soldier had been abducted or whether he may have been killed in the attack, and his remains had not been recovered.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and five others were wounded when a gunman on top of an abandoned building opened fire in a Sunni Arab neighborhood in central Baghdad, said police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali.
A spokesman for a prominent Sunni Arab political party was shot and killed by gunmen, said a party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears for his life.
Sheik Muhanad al-Gharairi was a spokesman for the Conference of People of Iraq, a Sunni Arab party headed by Adnan al-Dulaimi. He was also an imam at a mosque in Baghdad and was on his way to conduct prayers at a different mosque in Garma, 19 miles outside of Baghdad when he was killed.
The plan to dig trenches around Baghdad will be implemented in coming weeks, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf told The Associated Press.
It comes as more than 130 people were slain in two days — either killed in attacks or tortured and dumped in rivers or on the city's streets.
"Trenches will be dug around Baghdad in the coming weeks when the third part of the Baghdad security plan is implemented," Khalaf said. Metropolitan Baghdad has a circumference of about 60 miles.
The security plan, known as Operation Together Forward, began June 15 and is being implemented in three phases. The first phase included setting up random checkpoints around the city, phase two began Aug. 7 and focused on the most violence-prone areas of Baghdad — mostly the Sunni Arab southern districts. Phase three reportedly includes cordoning off and searching other parts of Baghdad, including predominantly Shiite areas.
