In Baghdad, fighting their 'Alamo', a captain fears it may be 'their surge, not ours.'

[babylonsister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-surge23may23,0,48591.story?coll=la-home-center

In Baghdad, fighting their 'Alamo'
U.S. troops in the Iraq security push face daunting foes: snipers and bombs. A captain fears it may be 'their surge, not ours.'
By Garrett Therolf, Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2007


BAGHDAD — The 16-man platoon from Ft. Hood, Texas, uses a decrepit Iraqi national police compound for its outpost. Chickens, turkeys and sheep laze on the lawn, drenched by an overflowing septic tank. Each day, the soldiers venture out for a few hours onto the dangerous streets of what was once a fashionable Sunni Arab neighborhood.

Led by a 24-year-old West Point graduate, the Americans weave their Humvees among villas commandeered by Sunni fighters who snipe at them from rooftops, bury bombs in the streets and evade searches with the help of two men dubbed the "moped twins," who relay the platoon's position by walkie-talkie at nearly every turn.

The troops stay overnight in makeshift quarters, nursing their wounds and attempting to hold onto any gains they've made through the day in the now-downtrodden Amiriya and Khadra districts.

The latest U.S.-Iraq security plan, based on occupying neighborhood bases and having close contact with the community, is nowhere more intense and focused than here in west Baghdad, where Iraqi forces battle daily with homegrown Sunni Muslim insurgents and foreign Islamist fighters.

Five U.S. soldiers have died this month in Amiriya, victims of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and snipers. Since the arrival of additional troops in February, the square-mile area patrolled by 1st Lt. Schuyler Williamson's platoon and others from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, has been the site of 300 IEDs buried in or alongside the road. An Army intelligence map uses small red blast symbols to mark bomb sites. The symbols obscure entire thoroughfares.

Soldiers here now openly declare pessimism for the mission's chances, unofficially referring to their splinter of heavily fortified land as "the Alamo."

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[Toots]

1. Well we know what happened at the Alamo don't we

:shrug: Democrats and Bush* sitting in a tree, ... k i s s i n g

[Dhalgren]

2. The whole thing might be called 'Stalingrad'...

[Stalwart]

3. Dien Bien Phu - Khe San

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh