U.S. general plans more Baghdad garrisons

By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The new commander of American forces in Baghdad plans to increase the number of local garrisons across the Iraqi capital even as U.S. troop levels drop in the coming months.

Moving soldiers out of relatively safe bases and into Baghdad's dangerous streets was a key element in the counter- insurgency strategy implemented by the commander of U.S. forces, General David Petraeus, when he arrived a year ago.

The tactic has been vital to the U.S. military's goal of not just clearing neighbourhoods of militants but then holding them.

Major-General Jeffery Hammond told foreign journalists on Tuesday that he had a total of 75 joint security stations and combat outposts in Baghdad and planned to add another dozen of each from now until June.

U.S. forces live and operate with Iraqi forces in such garrisons.

"I'm extending our reach even further than what it is now to be less predictable and to push ourselves into locations where maybe in the past we didn't go before," Hammond said.

"I don't want there to be any place in Baghdad where al Qaeda or anyone else can start to take hold because we've ignored that particular (area)."

Hammond said at least two joint security stations were being set up now in Baghdad where he believed there was an al Qaeda "nerve". He declined to give the location.