US plans to beef up forces in Baghdad
30/11/2006 16:08
The US military plans to move at least three more battalions of soldiers
into Iraq in an effort to restore security in the Iraqi capital, a senior
Pentagon official said yesterday.
The troops would come from more peaceful
regions in Iraq, and the shifts would not require an increase in American forces
in the country, CNN quoted the senior Pentagon official as saying.
Some
troops were in the Baghdad area but would be moved closer into the city, the
report said.
ABC television reported Tuesday that the US military was
considering withdrawing troops from Iraq's volatile al-Anbar province to
reinforce the capital Baghdad, but General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, denied that the military was considering to take that
move.
"There is no immediate thought to moving all coalition forces out of
al-Anbar province, and turning over right now, today, all security for al-Anbar
to Iraqi security forces," he said.
Pace confirmed that General George Casey,
the top US commander in Iraq, had moved some American forces from other parts of
the country to beef up security in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press
reported Wednesday that the Pentagon was developing plans to send four more
battalions of US troops to Iraq early next year to boost security in
Baghdad.
The extra combat engineer battalions of reserves to be sent to
Baghdad would total about 3,500 troops, officials were quoted as saying.
The
officials said the units would come from around the United States and had
already done a tour in Iraq, but there had been no final decision on which
battalions would go.
There were currently 139,000 US soldiers in Iraq, and
about 20,000 of them were deployed in and around Baghdad.
xinhua
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