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Officials said many of the air attacks were targeting strongholds in Arab
Jabour, south of the Iraqi capital.
"The precision air strikes targeted suspected AQI safe havens as part of
Operation Marne Thunderbolt, which is part of the country-wide Operation
Phantom Phoenix," the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
"The air raid targeted weapons depots to limit Al Qaida reinforcement
resources," Col. Terry Ferrell, commander of the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry
Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said. "The strikes that we concluded
were focused on IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and caches that we have
targeted, that will allow us to get our ground troops further into the
zone."
Over the last 12 days, the U.S. military has been using fixed- and
rotary-wing aircraft to target Al Qaida. In the latest operation in Arab
Jabour, the military deployed F/A-18 and B-1 bombers.
"The raid follows the Jan. 10 and Jan. 16 air strikes in the same region
which hit a combined total of 64 targets with a total weight of more than
80,000 pounds of bombs," the U.S. military said.
Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of Multinational Division North, said
the military was targeting Al Qaida strongholds in Diyala and other
provinces. Hertling said many Al Qaida cells succeeded in taking over
numerous Iraqi towns through intimidation.
"They had developed safe havens and caches," Hertling told a briefing on
Tuesday. "Some of them were very well formed. They weren't hasty positions
or hasty cache sites. These were ones that have been in place for a very
long time. So what I'll tell you is just the increase in expanding security
has caused significant damage to them."
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