One of Ours

American troops killed hundreds of insurgents in and around Baghdad in fighting over the past week, but have more work to do to fully secure the city and roads to the south and west that are vital for U.S. supply transport...

...“I got to tell you, we’ve killed a lot of people carrying weapons and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) this week,” [Gen. Mark] Hertling, a deputy commander of the Germany-based 1st Armored Division said Monday. “And when I say a lot, I am talking in the hundreds.”

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday that U.S. troops killed about 700 insurgents across Iraq since the beginning of the month. Around 70 coalition troops - almost all Americans - were also killed...

...Fighting was most intense Saturday and Sunday when, according to Hertling, an average of 42 engagements took place on each day.

“There was a lot of RPG firing and a lot of ambush activities,” he said. At one point late last week, he added, soldiers fought insurgents continuously for 72 hours in Abu Ghraib, a neighborhood near the airport on Baghdad’s western outskirts. An Apache attack helicopter was shot down Sunday and its two crew members were killed.

Most of the fighting in and around Baghdad took place in Abu Ghraib, the eastern Shiite district of Sadr City and the restive Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.

Hertling said most of those who fought U.S. troops last week were members of al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army and the Sunni Mohammed’s Army, an organization widely suspected to be an umbrella group of former intelligence agents, army and security officials and members of the banned Baath party. In Abu Ghraib, they included Sunni extremists, criminal gang members and unemployed youths.