The US military has been accused of adopting Israeli-style tactics in Iraq by arresting relatives of insurgents and destroying houses allegedly used to plan attacks against US troops.
Officials have denied the move was modelled on tactics used by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank, despite visits by US military officers to Israel this year to discuss urban combat with Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
"In recent weeks, we have begun using a much-increased tempo of taking the fight to remnants of the former regime to prevent them from planning and carrying out attacks on our people," a US defence official said yesterday.
"This is new in that we are engaging [attacking] buildings for two reasons - if we find they were used to plan or launch strikes against our forces, or if we have information that arms were being made or kept there for attacks," the official added.
Another confirmed a New York Timesreport that some family members of guerrillas wanted by the military were being arrested. But he said it was not a pressure tactic to coerce insurgents to surrender.
"We don't do kidnapping. We are arresting relatives if it becomes known that they are co-ordinating with those high-value targets that we are seeking, or if they have information where fugitives are holding out," the official said.
The London Times reported that at least one Iraqi village had been surrounded by razor wire as part of the crackdown, forcing residents to enter and leave through an American military checkpoint. That is similar to isolation tactics used by Israel in its war with insurgents.
Brig. Gen. Michael Vane, a senior officer in the US Army's Doctrine and Training Command, said in a letter to Armymagazine in July that American officers had gone to Israel to discuss urban combat and intelligence with the IDF.
In one recent incident, the US military used a bulldozer last week to knock down the front wall of a small compound owned by an elderly couple in the Iraqi village of Hawija west of Kirkuk after troops found a large cache of explosives in the house.
An order was initially given to destroy the house, but an American officer later relented. One soldier told reporters the threat to destroy the house had been a ruse to make the elderly woman provide information.