As the new year dawns bright, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, are stepping up pressure on insurgent leaders in the Karkh section of Baghdad.The soldiers of the 3rd Battalion take the responsibility of protecting all citizens, both Shia and Sunni, very seriously. The leadership, working with intelligence gained from the residents of the neighborhoods, have developed a top-three list of insurgents who operate in the area that they intend to capture.
Adil Tamra, a man who reportedly kills people for the sport of it, is at the top of that list. Stories abound about Tamra and rival leaders playing a deadly game of “one-upsmanship” where each man taunts the others to kill more men today than he did yesterday. “He’s just like Saddam Hussein”, said an Iraqi intelligence officer who works with the battalion. “He sits there and shoots people in the head, because they don’t share the same beliefs as him.”
Much to the frustration of the battalion, Tamra has proven to stay just one step ahead of the Iraqi Army. “We raided Adil Tamra’s house yesterday,” said team leader Iraqi Army Maj. Ahmed during a combat patrol through the area Jan. 4. “We found his (explosive) vest, some mortars and an RPG. The information we had told us he was in the house minutes before we arrived.”