Word: sunni
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...next summer, up from 98,500 now. Bush says he will defer to his military commanders on the question of future levels of U.S. forces, which now number about 137,000. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to seize control of rebel-held towns in the Sunni triangle by flooding them with Iraqi security forces and reconstruction...
Peril lurks around every corner. Even in Ramadi, a Sunni town that the U.S. military considers under its control, the Marines are ambushed nearly every day by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. Convoys passing through the city must navigate a minefield of roadside bombs. The violence has made it impossible to carry out missions to win the hearts and minds of the locals, most of whom have never warmed to the U.S. presence. The Marines in Ramadi don't use tanks and rarely call in air support; instead, they rely on guile, guts and instinct to hunt down the insurgents...
...that whatever the shortfalls last spring, the U.S. now had sufficient numbers in Iraq. But his comments emboldened critics like Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry who blast the Administration for mismanaging the war, and added to nervousness about the military's high-stakes offensive to seize control of the Sunni triangle from the insurgents in time for nationwide elections in January. U.S. officials say that as part of the strategy, the interim Iraqi government will try to win over the rebel-controlled towns by pouring security personnel and reconstruction funds into them, hoping to wean local residents from their support...
...offensive played by the slippery rules of guerrilla warfare that U.S. troops have come to master more and more. The bulk of what intelligence suggests are 200 to 500 rebels is thought to be made up of local Baathists and former military officers fighting for a return of a Sunni-dominated government or national liberation. The rest are foreign jihadis and hard-core Iraqi Islamists heeding the call of terrorist leaders like Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. For weeks, the al-Zarqawi fighters had made their presence in the city known. Only two days before the attack, there were reports...
...Marines are trying to identify their enemy and hunt him down, hoping to achieve the security needed to hold elections in the Sunni triangle. Insurgents, however, their numbers estimated in the hundreds, are intimidating locals, kidnapping and killing local officials, and staging frequent hit-and-run attacks. Regiment commander Lt. Col. Randall P. Newman believes foreign fighters are coming back and forth from Fallujah, mixing with ex-Baathists and local criminals in a combined effort to keep the city unstable. "It's almost like a chess match," says Golf Company executive officer, Lt. Dennis Doyle...