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US launches new offensive in Iraq

The father of one of 13 members of an Iraqi taekwondo team cries during a funeral in Sadr City, Baghdad, yesterday. The bodies of the athletes, who were kidnapped last year, were found in western Iraq on Friday. PHOTO: EPA

The US military, which just days ago completed its latest troop buildup in Iraq, has launched a large offensive operation in several al-Qaeda strongholds around Baghdad, the top US commander said yesterday.

General David Petraeus said the operation will put forces into key areas surrounding Baghdad that, according to intelligence, al-Qaeda is using to base some of its car bomb operations.

Petraeus, who met with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a morning breakfast, also said that while he doesn't have all the troops he might want, he knows he's got all he's going to get.

``There's never been a military commander in history who wouldn't like to have more of something or other -- that characterizes all of us here,'' he told reporters traveling with Gates. "The fact is frankly that we have all that our country is going to provide us in terms of combat forces. That is really it right now."

He said the buildup of nearly 30,000 additional troops that has just been completed allowed him to launch the latest assault.

The move, he said, is allowing him to send operations for the first time into "a number of areas around Baghdad, in particular to go into areas that were sanctuaries in the past of al-Qaeda."

Gates arrived on Friday night for an unannounced visit to Iraq -- his fourth since he took over last December. He was meeting with military and political leaders to assess progress and continued to urge the Iraqi government to move more quickly toward reconciliation and to stabilize the country.

Gates was scheduled to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki later yesterday for talks in which he was expected to push for more concrete steps towards national reconcilation.

"Frankly, we're disappointed with the progress so far, and hope that this most recent bombing by al-Qaeda won't further disrupt or delay the process," he said on Friday, referring to an attack on the Shiite al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the remains of 13 members of an Iraqi taekwondo team kidnapped last year have been found in western Iraq, police and hospital officials said yesterday.

The team had been driving to a training camp in neighboring Jordan in May last year when their convoy was stopped and all 15 athletes abducted along a road between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar Province.
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