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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.