U.S. forces launch a major offensive

BAGHDAD —  U.S. commanders announced the start of a major offensive outside Baghdad on Saturday aimed at flushing out Al Qaeda-linked fighters who use the lawless region to unleash attacks on the capital.

The push into a region south and east of Baghdad that includes the infamous “triangle of death” came days after the U.S. military completed a troop buildup, which the top American general in Iraq said had given him the forces he needed to take the fight into areas insurgents had regarded as havens.

“For the first time, we are really going to a couple of the key areas in the belts from which Al Qaeda has sallied forth with car bombs, additional fighters and so forth,” the Associated Press quoted Gen. David H. Petraeus as saying in Baghdad.

The offensive began before dawn Saturday and is expected to last several weeks, said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, who oversees four provinces south of Baghdad.

Missing soldiers

The operation is in the region where three U.S. soldiers were captured in an ambush last month. The military reported Saturday that the identification cards of the two still-missing soldiers were recovered in a recent raid on a suspected Al Qaeda-linked safe house north of Baghdad.

The find, 75 miles from the spot where the men disappeared, was a chilling indication of the ability of insurgents to move across wide distances, despite the troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

U.S. commanders acknowledge that militants have the advantage of being able to blend into the local population. But military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said a search of the area yielded no evidence that the missing soldiers had been held at the house where their IDs were found June 9.

The focus of U.S. search efforts remained in the region south of Baghdad where they were captured, he said.

The house also contained computers, video production equipment, rifles and ammunition, the military said in a statement. There was a gunfight as U.S. soldiers approached the building near Samarra, and two soldiers were injured. But no one was found inside, the statement said.

Spc. Alex R. Jimenez of Lawrence, Mass., and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty of Waterford, Mich., disappeared after an attack on their patrol May 12 outside Yousifiya, a town about 10 miles south of Baghdad. The body of a third soldier captured with them, Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr. of Torrance, was later pulled from the Euphrates River nearby. Four other Americans and an Iraqi soldier serving as an interpreter died in the initial assault.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgent umbrella group, later released a video claiming it had killed the three captives. The video, posted on the Internet, included footage of the two missing men’s IDs but offered no proof that they were dead.

The offensive announced Saturday is the latest phase of a campaign targeting insurgents in a region so prone to attacks that part of it has been dubbed “the triangle of death.”

Officers said Sunni Arab militants there had been ferrying weapons and fighters across the Tigris River. U.S. forces have destroyed 16 boats suspected of being used for this purpose since June 1, said Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., commander of the division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

Grigsby and Lynch spoke from a base in Wasit province, which stretches across agricultural and desert terrain to the Iranian border. From the air, the landscape appeared dry and inhospitable, the only signs of life some herds of sheep and camels grazing amid the scarce greenery. A lone tractor was the only moving vehicle on the long, straight roads.

The U.S. military also announced the death of a soldier in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Friday that injured three other patrol members. At least 3,521 American personnel have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the website icasualties.org, which tracks military deaths.

Gates pays a visit

With pressure mounting in Washington for results in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived late Friday on an unannounced visit to assess progress implementing the security crackdown launched in mid-February.

After being briefed by U.S. commanders and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he met Iraqi leaders to press for action on reforms that U.S. officials believe will encourage reconciliation among the country’s ethnic and religious factions. They include a reversal of a ban on government jobs for former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party and a fair distribution of the country’s oil wealth.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki assured Gates that his government was “very serious” about reconciliation, according to a statement issued by his office. Maliki also noted that Iraqi political and religious leaders had so far averted a major backlash after a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra was bombed Wednesday for the second time in just over a year.

Last year’s attack in Samarra unleashed a torrent of sectarian killing. This time, a 24-hour driving ban in Baghdad and other cities appeared to be working. Just two bodies of apparent sectarian death-squad victims were recovered in the capital Saturday, compared with 25 or more on many days before the curfew was imposed.

A rare calm prevailed in Baghdad. Children kicked soccer balls in streets usually jammed with traffic, and men set up rickety tables to play backgammon. But few expected the calm to last.

“Car bombs and various attacks will continue once the curfew is lifted, there’s no doubt about that,” said Zuhair Abdullah, whose hardware store was one of the few shops open on a usually bustling commercial strip in southeast Baghdad. “It’s our grim reality.”

Mosque explosion

In a sign of what could come, an explosion damaged the minaret of a Sunni Muslim mosque in the southern city of Basra, the second such attack in and around the overwhelmingly Shiite city in as many days. There were conflicting reports about whether the blast was caused by a bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade. No casualties were reported.

Also raising concern Saturday, influential cleric Muqtada Sadr called on Shiite Muslims to rally next month in Samarra, a largely Sunni city, to express their grief over the attacks on the Golden Mosque and show their commitment to their faith. The pilgrimage is timed to coincide with the July 5 birthday of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad and wife of Ali, who is revered by Shiites as their first imam.

In other developments, the remains of at least 15 members of an Iraqi taekwondo team were found more than a year after they disappeared in Al Anbar, a province west of Baghdad, police and relatives said. The team vanished in May 2006 on its way to Jordan, where members had hoped to secure visas to attend a tournament in Las Vegas.

zavis@latimes.com

tina.susman@latimes.com

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Zavis reported from Baghdad and Susman from Wasit province. Times staff writers Said Rifai, Suhail Ahmad and Wail Alhafith and special correspondents in Baghdad contributed to this report.