And, in the northern city of Kirkuk, insurgents fired mortar rounds at an oil plant, triggering a fire but causing no casualties.
A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house.
After having pointedly warned Baghdad not to use poison gas or combat aircraft anywhere in Iraq, warnings that had encouraged the rebellion, pulled up short when Iraq continued to fly combat helicopters against the insurgents.
With 11 civilians and five police killed, along with 11 insurgents, the death toll could have been much worse.
In a statement, the Presidency Council is implicitly critical of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who has repeatedly accused Syria of training and sheltering insurgents.
They set fire to the police headquarters building and also attacked a court house. Police say at least 15 insurgents were killed in the ensuing gunbattle with security forces.
The Iraqi national army and police will get stronger, holding off the insurgents if not actually defeating them.
"When you're going on a mission," Dowling says, "a raid or a patrol, insurgents are sneaky — they like to hide stuff from you." But a dog can smell them.
Almost all of these awards were for "encounters" with suspected insurgents.
In the Sayed Abad district, about 45 miles south-west of Kabul, insurgents used rocket-propelled grenades to bring down a helicopter last month, killing 38 people including 30 us soldiers.
But they say it is difficult to prevent all civilian casualties because insurgents often hide among civilians and sometimes try to deceive coalition forces into firing on them.
The insurgents invaded the H_tel des Invalides military hospital to seize weapons and then headed for the Bastille.
That would only be a start on the way to national reconciliation which must also involve the many ethnic minorities and the armed insurgents claiming to represent them.
By early yesterday, insurgents had taken control of the country's main air base.
Although the insurgents use Salafism as their ideology, not all Salafis are rebels.
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