JACKSON - Insurgent attacks are becoming more sophisticated but Iraqi security forces backed by American troops are chipping away at the extremist power structure and disrupting radical cells, a Mississippi Guard spokesman in Iraq says.
Maj. Danny Blanton, a spokesman for the 155th Brigade Combat Team, which is operating in the North Babil, Karbala and Najaf provinces, says U.S. Troops are training and supporting Iraqi forces and "chipping away at the terrorists' center of gravity."
The 155th is a unit of 4,000 National Guard soldiers from Mississippi, Arkansas and Vermont. The combat team trained at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg and deployed for Iraq in January.
"The Iraqi Security Forces are becoming more confident and better trained each day," Blanton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "As the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police continue to erode the insurgent power base, we will more and more take a role in the periphery, supporting the Iraqi's efforts to take control of their destiny."
Blanton echoed a message the Bush administration has touted in recent weeks that the success of the democratic elections in Iraq have thrown insurgents into a tailspin.
In a speech Tuesday at the National Defense University, a military education center at Fort McNair in Washington, Bush said spreading democracy is the key to ending violence throughout the Middle East.
"Across the Middle East, a critical mass of events is taking that region in a hopeful new direction," the president said.
Bush has called Iraq the front line in the war on terrorism. More than 1,500 U.S. troops have died there since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.
Blanton predicted that Iraqi security forces will one day be able to fend for themselves but, "Until then, we must continue to take the fight to the insurgents."
He said the 155th is prepared to do so.
"Make no mistake, the soldiers of the 155 Brigade Combat Team are doing an excellent job," he said.
The 155th is made up primarily of Mississippians, with about 3,500 men and women from 49 communities in the state, Maj. Gen. Harold Cross, Mississippi's adjutant general, has said.
This week, the 155th conducted a raid with Iraqi forces in the town of Haswah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, capturing 65 suspected insurgents, Blanton said. The unit apprehended 26 others in a similar raid in Musayib, he said.
In February, the unit uncovered a weapons cache that included 1,500 rounds of small arms ammunition, a surface-to-air missile, rocket propelled grenades and dozens of mortar rounds.
"These soldiers are well-trained, mature, and dedicated," Blanton said.
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