Truck bomb killed 10 people and badly damaged the bridge linking Baghdad to Iraq’s North:

As 16,000 US and Iraq troops launched a new Diyala offensive

DEBKAfile Intelligence

August 15, 2007

Earlier Tuesday, a truck bomb killed 10 people and badly damaged the bridge linking Baghdad to Iraq’s North, as 16,000 US and Iraq troops launched a new Diyala offensive.

The suicide fuel tanker caused part of the Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji to collapse killing at least 10 people with more missing after their cars plunged into the river. The bridge which links Baghdad to Mosul was a strategic asset to the US for receiving supplies. Furthermore, DEBKAfile’s military sources report that by sabotaging this key span, al Qaeda and Sunni Arab insurgents put a spoke in the wheel of Operation Lightning Hammer. This operation was launched Tuesday to push them to the wall in Diyala province. The damaged bridge will prevent US troops giving chase after their fugitives into the western Euphrates Valley. US military spokesmen say the operation is aimed at the terrorists and insurgents in flight from an earlier crackdown in the provincial capital of Baqouba and show them they have no safe haven anywhere, especially in Diyala.


The suicide fuel tanker caused part of the bridge to collapse near Taiji, killing ten people, injuring six. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that by sabotaging this key bridge, al Qaeda and Sunni Arab insurgents put a spoke in the wheel of Operation Lightning Hammer begun Tuesday to push them to the wall in Diyala province. The damaged bridge will prevent US troops giving chase after their fugitives into the western Euphrates Valley. US military spokesmen say the operation beginning Tuesday is aimed at the militants in flight from an earlier crackdown in the provincial capital of Baqouba and show them they have no safe haven anywhere, especially in Diyala.