A brigade of 3200 additional US soldiers arrive to Baghdad


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Sunday January 21, 2007

Baghdad- As part of a Washington-backed extended security
plan for Baghdad, an additional 3,200 US soldiers arrived in the
violence-marred Iraqi capital, a US military spokesman announced
Sunday.
The forces will start operating starting February 1, said
spokesman General Ray Odierno.

The presence of the US troops coincides with the initiation of
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security plan, in which forces
are to be beefed up around Baghdad and joint US-Iraqi forces are
expected to crack down on militants in extensive neighbourhood-by-
neighbourhood raids.

US President George W Bush had outlined his revised strategy for
Iraq in a major speech on January 10. The new plan foresees the
sending of an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to assist the Iraqi
security forces and hopefully end the ongoing violence in the
violence-torn country.

US soldiers started seeping into Baghdad last week. The first
arriving troops entered Iraq through the shared Iraq-Kuwait border.
Kuwait is a strong ally of the United States and has a large US
military base on its territory.

"Their mission will be to assist Iraqi Security Forces to clear,
control and retain key areas of the capital city in order to reduce
violence and to set the conditions for a transition to full Iraqi
control of security in the city," read a US statement.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency