TSR: "There is in Diyala province an extraordinarily agressive fight currently underway."

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Length: 3:12

WOLF BLITZER: In Iraq, meanwhile, as terrorists move so do U.S. and Iraqi forces. Right now troops are on the move in one dangerous area trying to take their fight right where some of Iraq's most feared and hated insurgents operate.

Joining us now our correspondent in Baghdad, Michael Ware. Michael, you've just been embedded with U.S. military forces, what, for nine days. Give us your impressions. What's going on?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, where I went is to the province called Diyala. Now this is just north of the capital, Baghdad. There I saw the face of the new front line against al Qaeda, or indeed it's the old front line made new again.

What we've witness happen over the past six to nine months is a migration of the al Qaeda fight, its operational focus, from al Anbar province to the west of the country where it's coming under pressure as U.S. forces have unleashed the Baathist insurgents, the nationalists who don't share the al Qaeda agenda and the tribes against al Qaeda. Then we've seen in the last eight or nine weeks the surge, the influx of American troops targeting the capital. That's caused a further displacement of al Qaeda to Diyala province, and so now what we're witnessing is America confronting them there to the north of the capital. It's the new cutting edge against al Qaeda.

BLITZER: So how are they doing? Is there progress being made in Diyala?

WARE: There is in Diyala province, Wolf, an extraordinarily aggressive fight currently underway. We have a brigade of American troops, approximately 5,000 men and women, there in that province. Now they have only been there five months, but already they have lost 44 people. Now, previous brigades there have lost 19 or 20-odd. That's a sign of what is going on.

That's how much this new brigade is taking the fight to al Qaeda. They are looking for al Qaeda safe havens. They are looking for areas where U.S. forces have not had a permanent presence before and they are going in there and they are staying there. This is yet another stage in the evolution that we are currently observing in U.S. strategy, that we first saw emerge in the northern town of Tal'Afar.

We then saw reapplied in the western city of Ramadi. Now we're seeing it again through Baghdad and ultimately in Diyala where American troops just don't go in and fight and clear and withdraw, but they leave a small presence behind, and this is where it's happening right on the edge in Diyala province.

BLITZER: And we've been showing our viewers, Michael, some of the extraordinary video that you and your team shot during these nine days of this embed in the Diyala province. Michael Ware, our reporter joining us. Thanks, Michael.

WARE: Thank you, Wolf.