BAQUBAH — Lt. Qusai had his doubts last week when he took his men into an insurgent haven in the western part of this city for the first time.
"Honestly, I thought this operation would never be successful because I had information that Al Qaeda had big guns and RPGs," rocket-propelled grenades, said the Iraqi army commander who provided only one name. "We thought that all the people here are terrorists and everyone is bad, even the women and children."
To his surprise, many of the Sunni Arabs welcomed the Iraqi soldiers who followed U.S. infantrymen through the dusty, bomb-scarred streets, which shimmered in the blazing heat. One man offered them glasses of water on a tray, and a woman wept at the sight of them.
"It was the worst part of the city," said the stocky, no-nonsense officer wearing camouflage and leather gloves. "But I found ... that not all the people here are bad."
The patrols, which began Thursday, were a small step toward returning Iraqi security forces to three western Baqubah neighborhoods they had largely abandoned.
Al Qaeda-linked insurgents overran large parts of the city, which they declared the capital of their shadow government, the Islamic State of Iraq.
The Iraqi troops' ability to control the streets of Baqubah is a crucial component of the U.S. plan to assert government control over the lawless capital of Diyala province, which lies between Baghdad and the border with Iran.
"They will be the forces that retain, hold and secure the neighborhoods" after U.S. troops have swept through, said Army Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding officer for operations in northern Iraq.
After the U.S. military gave Iraqi forces lead responsibility for the province last summer, security began to break down.
There were reports of sweeping raids and abusive treatment by the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police force and army against Sunni Arabs, who have a slight majority in Diyala, U.S. Army officers said.
Al Qaeda poured fighters into the region after a U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and setbacks in Al Anbar province, where Sunni tribesmen have sided with the government forces. Fighting in Diyala now accounts for more U.S. troop deaths than in Al Anbar.
Masked men who drive through some neighborhoods with guns poking out their car windows have overwhelmed the fledgling government forces.
