Word: tikrit
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...commanders say they are winning the race, but it's a tense fight in which they have to rely on allies they don't know. One night last week, Russell was in an office building in downtown Tikrit, waiting for a call from a new intelligence source who said he knew where a prominent Fedayeen leader was staying for the night. Four M1 Abrams tanks, six Bradley fighting vehicles and two infantry platoons from the 4th Infantry Division stood poised to capture the man, who was believed to have been plotting for months to kill American soldiers in the area...
...convoy pulled out and headed to a flophouse in town where the Fedayeen commander was lodging. Russell's Cobra Company stormed the three-story building, netting 38 workers from out of town and their man--a provincial Fedayeen organizer nicknamed Sami "The Rock." Task Force 20, operating south of Tikrit, nabbed two more "high level" resistance leaders on the same night. Said Russell after the raid: "The source came through." And he could come through again--if his name doesn't end up on the wrong list. --With reporting by Timothy J. Burger and Massimo Calabresi/Washington, Hassan Fattah and Vivienne...
...American forces in Tikrit say they can't guarantee the safety of all who come to them with information. And while Russell is concerned about the distribution of lists of citizens cooperating with American troops, the U.S. focus on rounding up the leadership and guarding its own forces from attack means it can't extend much protection to the Iraqis, who may be the key to catching Saddam and ultimately subduing the resistance. And so U.S. soldiers are in a race with the insurgents. "Our response," says Russell, "is to finish off our list before they finish off theirs...
...militants agitated by the U.S. presence in Iraq, cooperating with the coalition forces is an offense tantamount to treason. In Tikrit, a block from the parade grounds where Saddam often celebrated his birthday, graffiti on a wall in bold Arabic strokes READ ALL THOSE WHO COOPERATE WITH THE AMERICANS WILL BE KILLED. Not far down the road, a former lieutenant in the Fedayeen who met with a TIME reporter in his one-story home reiterates that threat. "Traitors," spits the lieutenant at the mention of those helping the U.S. forces. "They are not Iraqis. They don't love their country...
When darkness falls, the men of the U.S. Army's 1-22 Infantry Brigade go to work. Operating in hostile territory, the troops use their night-vision capabilities to surprise the enemy. TIME photographer BENJAMIN LOWY accompanied a three-man sniper team on a night mission in Tikrit last week. From the roof of a five-story building, the team staked out an intersection dubbed "RPG alley," the site of numerous rocket-propelled-grenade attacks on U.S. convoys. Because sniper teams are clandestine units, photographs of the troops were shot using a soldier's night optical device, providing a glimpse...