Secret US offensive targeting insurgents - results in missing insurgents & 9 US soldiers killed

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/world/middleeast/09diyala.html

U.S. Attack in Iraq Is No Surprise to Many Insurgents

ESAIWID, Iraq — With extraordinary secrecy, and even an information blackout aimed at most of their Iraqi Army comrades, American troops began a major offensive on Tuesday to drive Sunni insurgents from strongholds in Diyala Province. But many insurgents still managed to flee the first villages the Americans went into, showing just how difficult it is to trap the elusive militants.

Because at least half the insurgents escaped before an offensive last June, American planners deliberately kept most Iraqi units in the dark before this one, a tactic that suggests they cannot fully trust the allies who are supposed to pick up more of the fighting as American troops scale back their presence this year.

The militants may have been tipped by leaks or by the visible movements of troops and machinery that precede any operation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_soldiers_killed_1

9 US soldiers killed in Iraq in 2 days

BAGHDAD - Nine American soldiers were killed in the first two days of a new American drive to kill al-Qaida in Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of the capital, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Six soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday in a booby-trapped house in Diyala province, where joint U.S.-Iraqi forces were driving through a difficult web of lush palm and citrus groves, farmland and fertile river bottoms.

The military also announced that three U.S. soldiers were killed and two were wounded Tuesday in an attack in Salahuddin province. The operation began Tuesday.