Tuskers pave way for Iraqi route clearance

Photo By Sgt. David Hodge | Spc. Aaron Desimone, a combat engineer from Sangerfield, N.Y., assigned to 1st Platoon, Company E, 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, attached to the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, engages in a friendly arm wrestling contest with a national policeman during a moment of down time between route-clearance missions May 30 at a combat outpost in the Rashid District of southern Baghdad.  

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

06.06.2008

Story by Sgt. David Hodge 

1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

By Spc. David Hodge
1st Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs Office, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division-Baghdad

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq – Soldiers from Company E, 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, move painstakingly slow... up and down the roads, every day, prodding at suspicious debris near the roads with their lengthy mechanical arm-like instrument, searching for the number-one killer of Soldiers in Iraq: the improvised-explosive device.

Multi-National Division – Baghdad route clearance teams play an important part in securing the major thoroughfares in the capital city of Baghdad.

In the Rashid District, Soldiers from Co. E, 4-64 Armor Regt., attached to the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, will soon see their Iraqi counterparts assume responsibility of a main stretch of road that divides the district into two halves, said 1st Sgt. Anthony Coker, the senior enlisted leader for Co. E.

"The commander of (3rd Battalion, 1st National Police Brigade (Mechanized)), Gen. Shakir, plans to dedicate 20 of his finest policemen to Iraq's first route-clearance platoon by fall of this year," Coker said.

In April, Soldiers from 1st Platoon, Co. E, "Beast" Company, began conducting combined route-clearance patrols with Baghdad's first Iraqi route-clearance team, said Coker.

The Soldiers periodically halt clearance operations to stop at the 3rd Bn., 1st NP Bde. headquarters and conduct platoon-sized IED training with policemen from the route-clearance team.

"The most dangerous weapon in Iraq is the IED," said Rafid Basam Ali, a policeman assigned to 3rd Bn., 1st NP Bde., the ministry of interior's only mechanized NP unit. "Route clearance is important because it helps keep Iraqi citizens, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces safe."

When Beast Soldiers arrived in the Rashid District approximately seven months ago, route clearance and sanitation were the main focus.

"We credit the reduced number of IED strikes to the route sanitation and cache finds in the district," Coker said.

In the near future, the NP route-clearance team will train on new vehicles and equipment to defeat IEDs in Rashid.

Coker said he believes that by spring of next year, Iraqi route-clearance teams should have complete control of operations in the Rashid District.

The transition of authority in route-clearance operations is one step in the process of handing complete control over to the Iraqis, he added.

• Date Taken: 06.06.2008
• Date Posted: 06.06.2008 01:57
• Story ID: 20167
• Location: BAGHDAD, IQ