You know how I'm always saying it's a Bug Hunt?

Insurgents waged a five-hour pitched battle against Iraqi and American forces in al-Anbar province. The fighting started Amiriya, about 11 miles south of Fallouja on Tuesday night with an hour-long barrage of mortar fire directed at an Iraqi police station. The barrage continued until a United States Marines artillery unit fired on the insurgents and disrupted the shelling.

The fighting continued for hours and only ended when U.S. warplanes strafed militant positions, killing six and destroying their vehicles. The number of wounded was not reported.

I find it noteworthy that there seems to be a pattern emerging of insurgent forces fighting effectively enough against the Iraqi security forces that battles only end with U.S. airpower comes into the equation.

Elsewhere in iraq on Wednesday;

Iraqi police destroyed a massive truck bomb in a controlled explosion today that inadvertently killed one person, officials said.

The truck was parked under an overpass just yards from the Ministry of Finance, which was mostly empty because of a national holiday marking the Kurdish and Iranian New Year. A large quantity of explosives was discovered in the vehicle hidden under crates of vegetables, police said.

Explosives experts were brought in and security forces moved the vehicle to an open area. But the blast was so powerful, that it killed one onlooker, injured seven others and crumbled part of the highway, police said. (Really inspires confidence in those we are supposed to turn the reins over too, no?)

But the bomb was only part of the violence that wracked the provinces on Tuesday.

· Earlier, two roadside bombs targeting police patrols exploded in quick succession in east Baghdad. One officer was killed and three were injured along with a civilian, police said.

· Three mortar rounds slammed into homes in the Madain area, on the city's southern outskirts, killing three people and injuring 10, police said.

· U.S. forces killed five suspected insurgents and detained three others during a raid near Taji, north of Baghdad

· South of Baghdad, gunmen burst into the Ali ibn-Moussa Mosque in central Basra shortly after dawn prayers and opened fire, police said. The imam and a guard were killed and a municipal council employee was injured in the attack, police said.

· The body of a kidnapped police officer was found in Diwaniya, a strife-torn town south of Baghdad, police said.

As troops *surge* into Baghdad in an attempt to secure the capital, the violence just relocates, what Secretary Gates called a "squirting effect" - like the insurgency was so much incompressible liquid.

And when I say this is a Bug Hunt? This is what I mean.

[This post was linked at Salon's Blog Report, Blogging From the Left, on Saturday, March 24]