WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday announced upcoming deployments of more than 42,000 troops, including 25,000 active duty Army soldiers who would be sent to Iraq beginning in the fall to replace troops scheduled to come home by year’s end.
Under the new Pentagon policy, effective in August, those active duty Army units will serve for 12 months, rather than the 15-month tours that units in Iraq now are serving. The bulk of the soldiers deploying later this year returned from Iraq late last year and will have gotten about a year at home to rest and retrain.
The deployments would maintain a level of 15 brigades in Iraq, or roughly 140,000 troops — the number military leaders expect will remain on the warfront at the end of July, once the currently planned withdrawals are finished. Currently there are 155,000 troops, including 17 combat brigades, in Iraq.
The seven Army combat brigades and one division headquarters units that would be sent to Iraq later this year are: 25th Infantry Division Headquarters; 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo.; 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, from Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, from Fort Riley, Kan.; 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C.; 172nd Infantry Brigade from Schweinfurt, Germany; 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Texas; and 1st Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
The four National Guard brigades being alerted for Iraq duty are: 72nd Brigade Combat Team, Texas National Guard; 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard; 256th Brigade Combat Team, Louisiana National Guard; and 278th Brigade Combat Team, Tennessee National Guard.
The unit told to prepare for deployment to Afghanistan was the 86th Brigade Combat Team from the Vermont National Guard.
U.S. military holding about 500 youths in Iraq
The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles in detention centers in Iraq, and has about 10 detained at the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations.
A total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been detained for periods up to a year or more since 2002, the United States reported last week to the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child. About 100 juveniles are being held in Afghanistan, and the remaining youths are being held in Iraq.
The majority are believed to be 16 or 17 years old.
The U.S. military says it has held eight juveniles, ages 13 to 17, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the detention center opened in 2002.
Iraqi police recruits killed
Iraqi officials said Monday that suspected Sunni insurgents have attacked a minibus carrying police recruits, killing 11 people near Iraq’s border with Syria.
A provincial official and a police officer say police found the 11 bodies and their bullet-ridden minibus Monday evening in a deserted area near the rural town of Baaj, 80 miles west of the northern city of Mosul.
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