Security sweep slowly begins in tense Baghdad

updated 3:19 p.m. ET Feb. 7, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad's streets were electric with tension Wednesday as U.S. officials confirmed the new security operation was under way. U.S. armor rushed through streets, and Iraqi armored personnel carriers guarded bridges and major intersections.

New coils of barbed-wire and blast barriers marked checkpoints that caused traffic bottlenecks. U.S. Apache helicopters were in the air over parts of the city where they hadn't been seen before. Gunfire still rang out across the city, and some residents said they doubted life would get better.

"Nothing will work, it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City Shiite enclave who was badly wounded in a bombing in December.

Underlining the dangers ahead, a Sea Knight helicopter crashed Wednesday northwest of Baghdad, killing all seven people on board, the U.S. military said. It was the fifth chopper lost in Iraq in just over two weeks.

A military statement did not give a cause for the crash, but a senior U.S. defense official in Washington said the CH-46 helicopter did not appear to have been hit by hostile fire. An Iraqi air force officer said, however, the helicopter was shot down with a missile. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni group said in a Web statement it was responsible.

Tension in the air
At checkpoints that seemed to have been thrown up overnight, some of them blocking half the lanes of traffic on wide streets, Iraqi police and army soldiers searched cars at random. Drivers and passengers had to get out and show identity papers.

Adding to the tension, Iraqi army and police convoys fired rounds into the air above motorists, warning them to make way for the passing forces. The security troops drove over traffic medians and into incoming traffic.

In a sign of just how dangerous the security mission will be, a three-vehicle Western security company convoy came under fire near Haifa street, a Sunni insurgent stronghold just north of the Green Zone.

The security men in the armored cars returned fire and quickly exploded green and white smoke bombs for concealment. Minutes later, they sped away, with the bodyguards in the convoy pelting surrounding autos with water bottles to make them clear the way.

At about the same time, four guards at a nearby building housing state television were shot and killed on the rooftop. An official at Iraqiya television said the men were hit by fire from security company personnel escorting foreign visitors to the Justice Ministry just across the street. The television official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

‘Our blood is fair game’
In parts of the city only a few shops were open, a reminder of the fear people have of a repeat of the car and suicide bomb attacks that have hit Baghdad with regularity in recent weeks.

Lines outside petrol stations stretched for more than a mile in the city's worst fuel crisis in months.

Gunfire rang out across the capital and the wail of police and ambulance sirens seemed incessant. The buzz of low-flying U.S. helicopters and growl of fighter jets was nonstop above a new crop of posters and billboards speaking of Baghdad's struggle.

"Our streets are deserted and our blood is fair game," declared one that showed an empty street strewn with debris from a bombing.

Another billboard showed a young man weeping because he had not reported suspicious activity to authorities. "I should have done the right thing," he says.

Still another billboard message implored: "Be a hero and report suspicious behavior."

Most taxi drivers were refusing to take passengers headed to areas dominated by the Muslim sect other than their own. Minibus drivers were demanding passengers prove that they lived in the region where they wanted to travel.

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