Reporting from Iraq: Violence still flourishes in Diyala

DIYALA PROVINCE, Iraq -- Editor's note: The Ventura County Star sent a reporter and photographer to document the experiences of Seabees deployed to Iraq from Naval Base Ventura County. While there, an Army battalion commander invited them to see how the American military is attempting to defeat the insurgency in what is now considered the most violent spot in Iraq -- Diyala Province.

A black burn mark covers one corner of a mud brick wall.

The stain, less than a block from the Wajihiyah City Council office, marks the spot where two weeks ago a young woman wearing a black hijab blew herself up.

It's believed she intended to detonate the bomb strapped to her body in the midst of a group of new Sons of Iraq recruits -- citizen soldiers enlisted to help battle insurgents and members of terrorist cells operating in the province. The woman first went to the city offices but was turned away. Then she started running toward the spot where the Sons of Iraq are garrisoned and she tripped, setting off the bomb.

Army Capt. Travis Cox, commander of Fire Squadron Alpha in the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, walks past the spot without much notice.

He's meeting with the mayor, Mudiyar Waysi.

Cox doesn't trust the man, but he's working with him, along with members of the local council, the police and army units.

He's prodding them to buy into their own security, to combat suicide bombers, roadside bombs and threats of assassination.

Cox and the rest of the American military hope that the Iraqis in Diyala will join with American forces, as they've done elsewhere in Iraq, to help push out the entrenched forces of al-Qaeda, which for several years have found safe haven in dense palm groves along the Diyala River valley.

Though still brutal, violence in Iraq is down to the point that there is talk of moving some U.S. troops out of the country and into Afghanistan, where conflicts are escalating. Fighting, bombings and casualties in Iraq have dropped from the highest point a year ago to the lowest since 2004. There are bright spots in Iraq, but Diyala is not one of them.

"This is the most dangerous spot in Iraq right now," said Cox, a 31-year-old West Point graduate from Washington state.

It could be 11, or 13 or maybe 16 times that one of their armored Humvees or MRAPs, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, has hit an Improvised Explosive Devices, or IED.

There's a graveyard of vehicles on a lot at Forward Operating Base Warhorse. The bombs are triggered mostly by "crush wire" laid on the road or pressure plates buried under it. When a heavy vehicle passes, its weight presses together two contacts completing a circuit and triggering the bombs.

Every day soldiers from the Fire Squadron 2nd Stryker's Cavalry Regiment roll out of the Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Diyala, and every day they either hit an IED, get shot at with small arms fire or find some hidden al-Qaeda lair in the dense palm grove brush.

Some days they go into a new town accompanied by Iraqi government officials and someone from the Iraqi army to talk with people.

"We want to be known for something other than people who come in the middle of the night to detain military-aged men," Cox said.

It's also part of a plan to put pressure on insurgents and raise confidence of Iraqis who are hesitant to make a stand, said Lt. Col. Robert McAleer, a West Point graduate and former Special Forces officer who is commander of the battalion.

Many of these towns were largely ceded to jihadists for years now, but by showing up with Iraqi officials, the U.S. Army is able to gain some level of trust from the people there, he said. With increased security and basic services, some people have begun to move back into the area.

"It's the carrot portion of what we do," McAleer said.

Those who have remained and may even have sympathized with the jihadist can be won over, he said.

McAleer believes that local cooperation with or tolerance of al-Qaeda in Iraq operations here has been through intimidation. He cites an example from two summers ago when the group set up a special Shira court and ordered the beheading of more than 30 men.

"That kind of thing sends a message," McAleer said.

The message was obey or suffer the consequences. Mixed in with that were criminal elements and ethnic violence between Shias and Sunnis. It all contributed to the atmosphere of fear, he said. Some people fled. Others remained, bowing to the intimidation.

Despite the heavy violence in Diyala, McAleer believes that when the Iraqi Security Forces begin their big offenses, things will turn around.

"We'll take a good bite out of them in the next two weeks," he said. "I know I sound confident partly because militarily I look at the match-up and can say, 'Yeah we'll beat them'."

Cox and his battery of soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Regiment come into Wajihiyah almost every day to disrupt cells of suicide bombers and push the insurgents out of the palm groves along the river to the south.

The insurgents are pushing back, planting bombs in the road, in houses, launching random mortar attacks on towns and targeting posts of the Iraqi police, Iraqi army and Sons of Iraq.

Pushing into the palm groves is risky, but the Americans have captured or killed dozens of jihadists, including three foreign fighters from Sudan, Tunisia and Morocco.

On average, three Iraqis are killed every day in the province. That's nearly twice the toll in the next most violent province in the country, and almost three times as violent as Baghdad.

On the day Cox meets with Mayor Waysi and an Iraqi army major, whom Cox trusts and admires, the three men go to a funeral south of the town.

As they arrive, the village elders sit under a tent hoisted in a dirt road outside the walls of the town.

It's the second day of the traditional three-day funeral for a man and his son who were killed when a roadside bomb destroyed their little truck. The elders smoke Ishtar cigarettes, and then share a meal of roast lamb, rice and flat bread.

When Cox departs, he leaves some dinars (Iraqi currency) for the family, which is the custom.

The next day, some of Cox's soldiers, this time led by Lt. Justin Magula, return to Wajihiyah to walk through the market and pass out leaflets, encouraging people to support the Iraqi police and army or enlist in the Sons of Iraq program.

'We've done some good things here'

Crowds of children follow the soldiers chanting "Mista, Mista," and asking for soccer balls, pencils and candy.

Spc. Dustin Elser, a 27-year-old from Dillon, Mont., talks to a boy wearing a shirt with an image of the Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo.

"I hear he's going to A.C. Milan," Elser tells him.

Later, after another soldier says the fighting has been like a standoff in tic-tac-toe, Elser said, "We've done some good things here, stuff we can be proud of."

(Scott Hadly is a reporter with the Ventura County Star in California)