Former Iraqi Generals Caught in U.S. Raid

Pentagon ordering 100,000 replacement troops to Iraq

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

(8:16 PM ET) (01:16 GMT)

The Cable News Network

CNN's Jamie McIntyre and Barbara Starr contributed to this report

Several thousand Marines, not originally part of the plan, will be used to make up for the failure of the United States to get enough commitments from other countries to field a third multinational division. There are already divisions led by the Polish and British.

CNN
U.S. troops in Fallujah, Iraq, have captured two former Iraqi army generals suspected of spearheading anti-coalition fighting, coalition officials said Wednesday.

Troops from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division captured the generals in a raid Tuesday not far from where 15 soldiers died in a helicopter crash Sunday.

The former generals are suspected of being key financiers and organizers of anti-coalition fighters operating around Fallujah, coalition officials said.

Afterward, troops from the 16th Infantry Regiment, attached to the division, found an array of ammunition, including 225 rounds of 60 mm mortar ammunition, 20 rocket-propelled grenades and 100 rounds of .50-caliber machine gun ammunition, officials said.

Elsewhere, soldiers from Task Force Ironhorse, led by the 4th Infantry Division, found a cache of explosives, weapons, ammunition and a grenade launcher in a raid on a building in Hadid thought to be a safe house for people suspected of mortar attacks.

Also Wednesday, three 82nd Airborne soldiers on patrol were wounded when they came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, according to coalition officials.

A soldier from the 1st Armored Division died Tuesday from a "nonhostile" gunshot wound at a Baghdad checkpoint, coalition officials said.

* Rotation plan approved

* Other developments

(More: CNN.com / World)
2003 © Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

Dan