BAGHDAD — American soldiers helped Iraqi troops battle insurgents in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, repelling a major attack in the heart of the capital five days after President Barack Obama declared an end to U.S. combat operations.
At least 18 people were killed and 39 injured in the midday attack, in which a group of suicide bombers and gunmen attempted to storm the Iraqi army’s eastern Baghdad headquarters, located in a former Ministry of Defense building in a busy market district alongside the Tigris River.
No Americans were among the casualties, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Bloom. But U.S. soldiers did join in the fighting alongside Iraqis to repel the assailants, two of whom managed to enter the army compound.
“Soldiers living and working at Old MoD provided suppressive fire while Iraqi army soldiers located the two terrorists that entered the compound,” he said in an e-mail. The firefight lasted “a few minutes,” he said.
The U.S. military also dispatched helicopters, bomb disposal experts, unmanned aerial drones and other unspecified “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” assets to the scene of the downtown battle, he said, highlighting the continued dependence of the Iraqi security forces on American expertise and high-tech equipment.
An official with the Interior Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Iraqi security forces requested American help to defeat the insurgents, and that it was U.S. soldiers who shot two snipers who had taken up positions in nearby buildings.
It was the first significant attack in Baghdad since Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday in which he told Americans that U.S. combat operations were over.
The last official American combat brigade withdrew from Iraq in August, leaving behind 50,000 troops attached to what are called “advise and assist brigades.” The six brigades are made up of combat soldiers whose mission is to offer advice and assistance to the Iraqi army. In addition, about 4,500 Special Forces soldiers still conduct regular combat operations alongside Iraqi counterterrorism forces.
