Inside job: Iraq insurgents booby-trap houses

By LTC James Megellas

Insurgents are increasing the use of booby-trapped houses to attack U.S. troops, who are quickly adjusting their tactics to avoid getting caught in a deadly snare.

Six soldiers were killed and four injured Jan. 9 in Diyala province when the house they were searching exploded and came down upon them.

Al-Qaida “will come into a town and kick people out of their houses, use it as a headquarters and while they’re using it they’ll plant these devices,” Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of 1st Armored Division and Task Force Iron, told Army Times in a phone interview Jan. 11 from Tikrit.

Hertling is commander of Multi-National Division-North, which is headquartered in Tikrit, about 80 miles north of Baghdad.

In the case of the house in Diyala, he said, “these soldiers were led into the house by someone who didn’t go in with them. He was captured.”

Hertling said insurgents use different tactics to build what the Army calls house-borne improvised explosive devices, or HBIEDs.

In Diyala, Hertling said, they have found at least six HBIEDs.

Troops have found houses rigged with paint cans hung from the ceiling with wires attached to light switches leading to an initiator switch.

In other cases, Hertling explained, the makeshift bombs are embedded into baseboards, which are plastered over with mud and detonated remotely.

“Some literally will build holes into load-bearing walls and pack them with munitions so if the explosion doesn’t get you the collapse of the structure will,” he said.

The attack happened in the first two days of Operation Iron Harvest, which began Jan. 8 north of Baghdad in four provinces across an area the size of the state of Georgia.

Three soldiers were killed in Samarra during the first day of fighting.

They were identified as Sgt. David J. Hart, 22; Pfc. Ivan E. Merlo, 19; and Pfc. Phillip J. Pannier, 20. They were assigned to 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.

The six soldiers killed Jan. 9 were with 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Division, based in Vilseck, Germany.

They were identified by the Army as Spc. Zachary W. McBride, 20; Staff Sgt. Jonathan K. Dozier, 30; Staff Sgt. Sean M. Gaul, 29; Sgt. Christopher A. Sanders, 22; Spc. Todd E. Davis, 22; and Sgt. 1st Class Matthew I. Pionk, 30.

The units conducting Iron Harvest include the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, in Diyala; 1st BCT, 10th Mountain Division, in Kirkuk province; 1st BCT, 101st Airborne Division, in Salahuddin province; and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Ninewah province.

The northern Iraq operation is part of an Iraq-wide operation known as Phantom Phoenix, which was launched Jan. 8 against al-Qaida safe havens.

U.S. bombers and jet fighters unleashed 40,000 pounds of explosives during airstrikes Jan. 10, flattening what the military called al-Qaida in Iraq safe havens on the southern outskirts of the capital.

“Thirty-eight bombs were dropped within the first 10 minutes, with a total tonnage of 40,000 pounds,” according to a military statement.

Many militants have fled U.S. and Iraqi forces massing north of Baghdad in Diyala province.

The campaign’s scope is nationwide, but is mainly focused on gaining control of Diyala and its most important city, Baqubah, which al-Qaida has declared the capital of its self-styled Islamic caliphate.

The toll of nine American soldiers marked some of the deadliest days for U.S. forces in Iraq since last fall. In all of December, 23 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

The blows against U.S. troops came as extremists tried to stay ahead of the military advance. Al-Qaida fighters retreated north from Diyala, presumably to Salahuddin, Hertling told reporters in Baghdad.

“Operational security in Iraq is a problem,” he said, noting that the Iraqi army uses unsecured cell phones and radios. “I’m sure there is active leaking of communication.”

Hertling said his troops killed 20 to 30 insurgents in the first two days of the operation. It was unknown how many were killed in the airstrikes.

The reason for the surge of bloodshed is that insurgents who were pushed out of the western province of Anbar and out of Baghdad shifted their operations into Diyala, U.S. commanders said.

The tree-lined farm region is more difficult terrain for fighting insurgents than the desert of Anbar, suggesting Diyala may not have seen the last of al-Qaida in Iraq. Compounding the difficulty for the military is the checkerboard pattern of Shiite and Sunni communities adjacent to one another.

The military will need a period of peace and stability to meet its goal of speeding up work on basic services and other civic projects that commanders say will win more allies for the American effort.