Battle of Turki

Part of the Iraq War

Date	15-16 November 2006 (1 day)
Location	Turki, Iraq (near Baqubah)
Result	Decisive U.S. victory

Belligerents

United States of America

Islamic State of Iraq

Commanders and leaders

Lt. Col. Andrew Poppas

Abu Abdul Rahman

Strength

50 paratroopers

unknown

Casualties and losses

2 killed, unknown number of wounded

72 killed, 20 captured

The Battle of Turki, also known as Operation TURKI BOWL I, was a battle fought over 40 hours near the town of Baquba, Iraq, on the outskirts of the village of Turki in Diyala province between American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division and well trained insurgent forces in November 2006.

There have been very few major engagements since the battle for the Euphrates river valley, Al Anbar, in May and November 2005. But that didn't mean the well trained units of insurgents were all destroyed. Sunni Arab militant groups suspected of ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia established training camps east of Baghdad that turned out well-disciplined units willing to fight American forces in set-piece battles. American paratroopers fought such units in a pitched battle in the village of Turki in the volatile Diyala province, near the Iranian border.

Insurgents were apparently able to establish a training camp after American combat forces moved out of the area in the fall of 2005. Sunni Arab militants there belong to the fundamentalist Wahabbi strain of Islam and are believed to be led, at least in part, by a man known as Abu Abdul Rahman, an Iraqi-Canadian who moved from Canada to Iraq in 1995 after marrying a woman from Turki.

Senior US commanders training Iraqi Army units said other rural areas of eastern and central Diyala where American forces had little oversight were transformed into camps similar to the one at Turki. The “graduates,” many of whom belong to an umbrella group called the Sunni Council, then spread to urban areas such as Baquba, the provincial capital. Sectarian violence was rampant in Diyala, where Sunni and Shiite militants were vying for control.

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Wikipedia