US army considers pullback from restive Iraqi town

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 19, 2003

US army considers pullback from restive Iraqi town

US troops deployed in Iraq's volatile western area were considering to pull back from one of the towns where anti-US attacks used to be the strongest, a US spokesman said on Tuesday.

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US troops deployed in Iraq's volatile western area were considering to pull back from one of the towns where anti-US attacks used to be the strongest, a US spokesman said on Tuesday.

"Ramadi is getting very close to having the conditions to allow us to conduct a pullback around Jan. 1," said Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

He said the joint operations between US forces and Iraqi police in Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad, were improving to the extent that the operations "move to a second stage in regards to security."

However, the troops will be ready to return to offer help to control the situation if contacted by the Iraqi police.

He stressed that the choice was made in the context of the decrease of anti-US attacks in the general area, which also holds Fallujah, a town dubbed as the resistance capital.

"In the past 24 hours, we had one attack. Yesterday, we had nine attacks total, of which just one was an effective attack," said the general.

The average number of attacks used to be more than 15 a day when his division took over the area two months ago, he noted.

More people were coming with tip-offs about the insurgents hide-outs and weapon caches, he said, adding that 50 percent of the improvised explosive devices were discovered before they could be detonated.

Swannack speculated that 90 percent of the resistance fighters were Saddam Hussein's loyalists while the rest were foreigners.

The US troops have captured 14 foreign fighters and killed seven in the area, he said, adding that the Iraqi border patrol along the frontier near Syria was strengthening.

Another priority is to provide job opportunities for the 60 percent unemployed people in the Anbar province, said Swannack.

"So what we have to do is creating jobs" to compete with some of the Saddam loyalists who approached the jobless and paid them for carrying out attacks on American soldiers, he said.

"We've created almost 9,000 jobs in Anbar province in the last two months. We'll show you next month," he added.

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