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Chalk this one up as another mark against the wisdom of the Baker report.

The Associated Press is reporting that American and Iraqi forces were engaged in a gun battle against foreign forces in a Sunni enclave surrounding central Baghdad on Tuesday. The militants are being described as originating from Syria. This follows an incident on Saturday where Iraqi police encountered Sudanese fighters after discovering the bodies of 27 victims who were tortured and killed near Haifa street.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. troops battled gunmen in central Baghdad early Tuesday, and explosions were heard in the area, police and witnesses and the U.S. military said.

Police said the clashes erupted when gunmen attacked Iraqi army checkpoints in the Haifa Street area, and that Iraqi soldiers appealed to the U.S. military for help. American forces sealed off roads and joined Iraqi troops in raiding houses in pursuit of the gunmen, police said.

American warplanes screeched across the Iraqi capital, and could be seen flying low over the Haifa Street area.

The Iraqi defense ministry issued a statement saying eleven people were arrested, including seven Syrians. But the U.S. military said only three people had been arrested.

A U.S. military spokesman said American and Iraqi forces on Tuesday launched “targeted raids to capture multiple targets, disrupt insurgent activity and restore Iraqi Security Forces control of North Haifa Street.”

“This area has been subject to insurgent activity which has repeatedly disrupted Iraqi Security Force operations in central Baghdad,” Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl said in a statement.

Troops were receiving small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenade and indirect fire attacks during the operation, the statement said.

The escalating violence underscores the fact that foreign elements have declared war on America – yet people like the Baker group, Democrats and the Bush administration continue to act as if the war in Iraq is simply an escalation in a spiraling civil war. While there is no doubt that Sunni’s and Shiite’s are embroiled in an escalating battle for Iraq it is silly to sit on our hands while foreign elements continue to undermine the efforts to bring stability to the country. Negotiating with such elements is tantamount to validating their actions.

Earlier reports of violence in the primarily Sunni enclave of Haifa street reported that eight militants were captured on Saturday after Iraqi police found 27 victims who had been tortured before being dumped. The significance of this event is that 5 of the fighters were foreign fighters of Sudanese descent.

The reports of Sudanese fighters in Iraq ties in with the latest U.S. airstrike on Islamist forces in Somalia as they share roots and most likely funding from the same al-Qaeda sources. The Washington Post reported this link in the seemingly unrelated airstrike.

One target of the strike, sources said, was Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who is married to a Somali woman and has lived in Somalia since 1993 — the year of the attack against U.S. troops that was chronicled in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” In a 2001 U.S. court case against Osama bin Laden, Sudani was described by a leading witness as an explosives expert who was close to the al-Qaeda leader.

I’m sure this doesn’t make much sense to those out there who simply want to cut and run, Democrats like Dick Durbin and John Murtha, but the Bush administration for all its flaws gets it. We must defeat the terrorists wherever they are, Somalia, Iraq and anywhere else they may be hiding and plotting. Early reports by detractors of the Bush administration that characterized al-Qaeda as disjoint loosely connected cells is dangerously naive. The cells may be loosely connected but they are highly organized in their funding and intent.

It’s about time that Americans got behind this effort – failure to do so will only cause the loss of more innocent lives in the future.

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