http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s998085.htmSome 2,000 United States troops have launched a massive sweep south of Baghdad, looking for bombs and ground-to-air missiles as part of a two-week-old counter-insurgency operation, officers said.
Two brigades from the US 82nd Airborne Division were involved in the sweep along the road towards the central Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city of Najaf, said Sergeant Brent Williams, public affairs officer with the division's Second Brigade.
Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles from the US 1st Armoured Division and three companies of the new Iraqi Civil Defence Corps also took part in the operation.
It was aimed at finding munitions including surface-to-air missiles and charges used in making the sort of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) favoured by anti-coalition insurgents.
"We are searching Highway 8 from Checkpoint 7, two kilometres north of here about 15 kilometres down to the south," Sergeant Williams said.
"We are working 1000 metres on either side of the road - we are looking for IED-making material, areas that the enemy might use as a foothold to conduct operations or attacks against coalition forces," he said, as his troops waded through the knee-deep mud churned up in the desert by winter rains.
Sergeant Williams said the operation was not organised in response to a missile strike on a DHL civilian cargo jet launched by insurgents from scrubland south of the capital last week.
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