Iraqi soldiers enter former stronghold of Sunni militants

A Shiite leader urged Sunni and secular parties to rejoin the government.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

HEMBIS, Iraq — Singing and cheering, Iraqi soldiers rolled through snow and sleet in open trucks Friday to set up a base on the outskirts of the reputed nerve center of Sunni militants who had forced the northern Diyala River Valley into their self-styled Islamic caliphate.

The two companies from the 1st Iraqi Army Division that arrived from Anbar province were the first Iraqi forces to penetrate the former militant stronghold in more than a year.

U.S. commanders hope the Iraqis can take over security responsibility there quickly to free up their forces, which launched a nationwide push this week against the Sunni militant group al-Qaida in Iraq.

Meanwhile in Baghdad on Friday, an influential Shiite leader in Iraq’s ruling political alliance called for Sunni and secular parties to rejoin the government and help break months of deadlock. In Baghdad, Ammar Hakim, the son of Abdel-Aziz Hakim, the head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, urged former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular party and the Iraqi Accordance Front the country’s largest Sunni political bloc, to take their place back in the government.

U.S. intelligence indicated about 200 insurgents previously were holed up in the Diyala valley, some of them displaced by U.S. operations in Baghdad and the provincial capital, Baqubah.

As U.S. soldiers went from village to village, residents identified Hembis as the base from which the militants threatened, extorted and enforced their rigid brand of Islam on surrounding villages.

But by the time the soldiers of Company I, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Combat Team took control of the town Wednesday, most of the fighters had melted away.

They left behind bombs buried in the roads and houses rigged to explode. U.S. soldiers found a car-bomb making factory around the corner from the mosque and three booby-trapped houses surrounding a nearby courtyard.

The sites were destroyed with controlled explosions that echoed across the town.

U.S. forces believe some insurgents remain hidden among the population.

Two freshly planted bombs were found Friday along one of the major roads through the valley, which U.S. forces had cleared.