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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Operation Iron Grip Aimed at Iraqi Insurgent Hideouts

Aired December 24, 2003 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: On now to another big story we're following for you. In Iraq, coalition forces have launched a new campaign. It's called Operation Iron Grip.
Our Karl Penhaul is in Baghdad and joins us live with the details of Operation Iron Grip -- Karl.

Hi, Fredricka.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In fact, we were shaken from our beds shortly after midnight this morning by the pounding of Apache attack helicopters, by an AC-130 Specter gunship and by the sound of field guns pounding away at a southern neighborhood of Baghdad.

Talking this morning to a spokesman for the 1st Armored Division, he's telling us that Operation Iron Grip is aimed at targeting hideouts of suspected Iraqi insurgents and destroying areas where they've used before to launch attacks on coalition forces, and where they may be assembling again in preparation for strikes on coalition forces over the Christmas and New Year period this very definitively pre-empted strike.

One of our local CNN staff members, who lives very close to that neighborhood of Baghdad, said this sounded like a flashback to the highest days of the war. He said the ground was shaking around his home. He said it sounded like a mini-earthquake.

The military hasn't said so far what damage, what casualties, were caused by those strikes, but they do very much say that this is an operation that will be ongoing for the foreseeable future, and that is to stem the threat of potential guerrilla activity over the holiday period -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And, Karl, has the military said anything about how many insurgents were apprehended?

PENHAUL: Not at all, no. They're very scant on those details, precisely because this is an ongoing attack. And as I say, this is focused on Baghdad itself.

That said, we are receiving reports over the last few minutes that there has been quite a large bomb, possibly a suicide bomb in the northern Kurdish city of Erbil (ph). Operation Iron Grip hasn't extended to outlying areas outside the capital, so obviously those kinds of things will be of concern to coalition forces. That bomb in Erbil (ph), which may have left, according to media reports, up to 4 people dead and 20 others wounded. Coalition forces will be keen to see that that's not replicated around other areas of Iraq, and that this isn't the start of some kind of holiday season escalation in violence -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Karl Penhaul, thank you for that report from Baghdad.

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