Report from Iraq: Soldiers search in Kirkuk
By Doug Grindle Community Reporter
Editor's note: For six weeks, our Marlborough Community Reporter Doug Grindle is again embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there, he plans to send us articles whenever he can to provide our readers with glimpses of what is going on in the region.

Soldiers of the 2-35 Infantry Humvee patrol prepare for a mission in Kirkuk. PHOTO/DOUG GRINDLE

Many thanks to Doug and other journalists like him who put themselves in harm's way so that those of us safe at home can be well-informed.

The following is his fourth contribution from Iraq.

Kirkuk, Iraq - Soldiers of Charlie Co. 2-35 Infantry Battalion push through the front gate of a house in the city of Kirkuk at 8 p.m. The soldiers walk past a car sitting on a concrete driveway in the small yard and look through the tiny plot of grass. More soldiers talk to the owner of the house. He invites them inside.

The man's wife looks on as he speaks with the soldiers. His two children push through the grownups milling in the hallway. The soldiers often hand out candy to the kids and today is no exception. The soldiers hand out gifts of candy, rice and flour.

Iraqi Police on the U.S. base in Kirkuk. PHOTO/DOUG GRINDLE

"We drive around, we get shot at, we get hit by IEDs [roadside bombs]. This mission enables us to go through and see the nice people of Kirkuk," Sfc. Michael Sansbury says. "Everyone in Kirkuk is not bad and this environment, where we are able to come and meet the family and shake hands and give candy to the children, is a very pleasant experience for us."

This house is in one of the worst neighborhoods in Kirkuk. The city is loosely separated into ethnic divides. There is the Kurdish north, the Arab south, and Turkmen, of Turkish origin, are mixed in between. Most of the problems, soldiers say, come from the Arab sections in the southern part of the city. These areas are also the poorest.

The soldiers figure they can help stem the security problems by coming to the worst areas and putting a human face on their presence.

It seems to work. The Iraqis treat the soldiers well, and seem happy to receive the food.

In one house a man draws Sansbury aside. They walk into the kitchen, away from the Iraqi policemen accompanying the soldiers. The man obviously trusts the Americans more than the local police force.

The man gestures at the house across the street.

"He's telling us that this family that came here four months ago from Diyala, Baqquba. They are acting suspiciously and they get visitors that look weird," the interpreter told Sansbury.

The city of Baqquba, in war-torn Diyala Province, has been major battle site in recent months, as many insurgents pushed out by U.S. and Iraqi forces have headed north.

Sansbury looks worried and calls a similar team working the houses across the street. They report back and say 10 men are in the house, one with a gunshot wound. But the men have come from Suilemeniyah, which is in the Kurdish area and is quiet. It is a false alarm, but Sansbury thanks the man.

"Tell him that that's the kind of information that we need," Sansbury instructed his interpreter. "Tell him if we had more people that would do what he did, that would make Kirkuk a better place."

The soldiers move to the next house. Half an hour later they have finished visiting 20 houses along the street. They climb into their Humvees. As a Kiowa helicopter buzzes overhead as top cover, the convoy of Iraqi police vehicles and American Humvees threads its way carefully back to the Iraqi police station.

They regroup and a little later they head out again. This time their mission is not so benign.

In a section of Kirkuk near their first destination, the soldiers and police dismount from their vehicles as quietly as possible. They jog down the street and crouch at an intersection. Some soldiers carry ladders. They are here to apprehend suspects in two nearby houses on opposite sides of the street.

As a team of American snipers climbs onto a roof of a house on the corner there is some shouting and three shots ring out, loud cracks in the quiet of the early morning hours.

The two lines of men trot quickly toward their target houses and set their ladders against the walls. The signal is given and they hop the sevenfoot walls of the houses and rush in. In each house they raise the inhabitants from their beds and gather them in one room. The team assigned to one house finds the suspect they are looking for. In the other house the family says they know the suspect but he lives across the street. The raid team runs across the street and crashes through the front gate.

They meet the family by the front door and quickly put the two men of the house against the wall, facing the ground. It turns out the men on the ground are members of the Iraqi Army and the suspect, a brother, was arrested by the police over a month ago.

The arrested men from the other house are led away.

Meanwhile the soldiers stand outside the house on the corner where the shots were fired. An Iraqi man sleeping on the roof of his house woke suddenly and charged the snipers, who tried to identify themselves. But he kept charging and they shot him dead. He had no weapon but the soldiers said they could not aff ord to take chances.

The man's mother wails inside the house for hours, as the soldiers wait for the coroner to come.

It is almost light by the time the soldiers get back to base. They will go out again later the same day.