The New York Times > International > Middle East > U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents

The New York Times > International > Middle East > U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents: "

US Backed Iraqis Kill 80 of Michael Moores Minute Men
March 24, 2005
U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents
By EDWARD WONG

AGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 - Iraqi and American forces killed at least 80 insurgents on Tuesday in a fierce battle during a morning raid on what appeared to be the largest guerrilla training camp to be discovered in the war, Iraqi officials said Wednesday. Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and six wounded.
Scores of guerrillas were reported to be living in tents and makeshift buildings at the marshy lakeside encampment, northwest of Baghdad.
The size and location of the camp suggested a shift in strategy by insurgents, American military officials said: It was first time the military had come across insurgents organized in such numbers in a remote rural location, an arrangement similar to Al Qaeda training camps in the arid mountains of Afghanistan.
'A year ago, they preferred to organize in small cells in urban areas,' said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, which sent soldiers and attack helicopters to aid the hundreds of Iraqi commandos who raided the camp. 'Here, they organized into a large group in a remote site, perhaps under the impression that coalition forces wouldn't look for them there.'
The Iraqi and American forces, who were responding to a tip from villagers nearby, discovered munitions, training manuals, car bombs, suicide-bomber vests and computers, along with identification papers that indicated that some of the fighters had come from outside Iraq, Major Goldenberg said.
He declined to specify the nationalities of the foreign insurgents; Iraqi officials said most came "

Legend "insurgent" = Minute men as described by Michael Moore and his Democrat / Socialist / Communist Comrades.