Bama Guard unit deploys to Iraq; another heading out later this week

Posted to Breaking News at The Birmingham News:

About 50 members of the an Alabama Army National Guard unit that specializes in explosive ordnance disposal have deployed to Iraq and a transportation unit with about 170 soldiers is slated to arrive there shortly.

The 111th Ordnance Group from Opelika arrived down range last week. While in Iraq, the 111th will head up Combined Joint Task Force Troy, which coordinates and oversees efforts to counter improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, throughout the country. Task Force Troy will oversee 600 to 800 U.S. troops involved in anti-IED operations, and several dozen of those troops are soldiers with one of the 111th’s subordinate units, the 441st Ordnance Battalion out of Huntsville.

Meanwhile, state Guard public affairs officer, Lt. Col. Cynthia Bachus, said the 2101st Transportation Company out of Demopolis, Aliceville and Butler is now in Kuwait and will be moving into Iraq soon. The upcoming tour will be the second one for about a third of the unit’s soldiers. The first was in 2004-05.

This morning, the commander of an Alabama Guard military police unit said in an e-mail Sunday’s national elections went smoothly in his unit’s southern sector of Iraq.

“The Iraqi Security Forces did a great job executing the security plan that they established for the province,” said Lt. Col. Charles
Buxton, commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 203rd Military Police Battalion, now based in Basra Province.

Soldiers with the Athens-based 203rd have helped train Iraqi police and did pre-election assessments to improve security at 20 critical polling places throughout the province.

Through last December, according to the latest Pentagon figures, more than 4,700 Alabamians were deployed in and around Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bama Guard unit works to protect polling places as Iraq’s elections near

Printed in The Birmingham News:

As Iraq’s national elections draw near, soldiers with an Alabama Army National Guard unit are working to help protect polling places in their sector in the southern part of the country.

About 80 soldiers with the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment of the 203rd Military Police Battalion are based in the southern city of Basrah. The unit commander, Lt. Col. Charles Buxton, said in an e-mail that battalion soldiers have done security assessments on “the 20 most critical polling sites in Basrah Province, as identified by the provincial director of police.”

“During these site assessments, we looked for structural issues and developed recommendations for force protection measures which were presented to the (director),” Buxton said. “During these site assessments, we transported members of the military working dog teams that will be used to conduct searches for explosives at the polling sites, prior to the start of the elections.”

Security at polling places and at government buildings is a concern for U.S. and Iraqi security forces as Sunday’s elections loom. Today, according to press reports, suicide bombers attacked two police stations and a hospital in the city Baqubah, north of Baghdad, and at least 31 people were killed.

In his e-mail, Buxton said 203rd soldiers had done “vulnerability assessments” of two buildings housing government offices, one of which is the Provincial Joint Coordination Center, a structure under the Ministry of Interior. As a result, Buxton said, two concrete barriers were being installed at the center this morning to thwart attacks “from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.”