Four incidents of RPG w/ small arms ambushes, found four Iraqi's setting up IED's (now in paradise ) Some of the weapons we have found have been home made rocket launchers, SA-7, RPG's and AK's. We've had two multi company raids and a few smaller cordon and searches.We have detained some >40 locals but have released a majority of them after investigating their stories.

Three days ago (mother shot twice and is currently in the hospital), two daughters (late teens early twenties) and a small one (8-10 YO daughter) were killed on their way to the FOB where they worked in different capacities. The mother and the little one worked in the barracks area for the BN doing general cleaning of the common areas. The other two daughters worked in one of the common offices on the FOB. It appears to be a vendetta killing because the shooters were familiar to the family. They were shot on the bus they were in then dragged out to the street and shot again. (also the bus driver was killed) An IP who was nearby did absolutely nothing because he feared for himself and his family(so he says). We picked up three out of the four involved in that shooting last night. We'll turn them over to the IP in the next couple of days.

Another raid one of the companies conducted resulted in us finding some armor piercing incendiary rounds fired out of AK's. (it is reported that these will penetrate our current IBA) (not a good thing out to 100 meters) These rounds have filtered down here from Russia and Afghanistan through Al Queda and other channels.

Two days ago we walked through one of the neighborhood (pictures attached) seeing the kids and a vast majority of the locals react is about the only thing that's good about this region. Over 95% of the population understand and are glad we are here. The other 5% (of 850,000 in our sector) are pissed because we're here. That <5% are the ones we deal with on a nightly basis. We have had a few incidents but the vast majority is done at night either in setting up the IED's or setting up ambushes. The pictures of the soccer field and sports plex is what we're opening up tomorrow.

There are four major projects we are working on, I'll explain one today and get another one next time. The power facility. Currently non operational. The power our sector gets is rationed in blocks of time, three hours on - nine hours off. A lot of the schools and government building have their own generators. The power plant is part Russian, part German, part British. The plant is supposed to be 25% operational by this fall, 50% by next summer. At that point it should be putting out approx 600 MW of power.

We're still tight in the barracks because the sub contractors have not fulfilled their contact to KBR who has not fulfilled their contracts with us. The facilities here are not too bad, this compound was previously used by the republican guard as a maintenance facility. I live in the headquarters building upstairs. It has shower and lavatories but the plumbing is so poor that in order to "do a class 1 (food) download we have to use porta johns set up out side the building. Oh for the feel of porcelain. We have small PX, laundry facility (three day turn around), barbershop, coffee shop and a small Iraqi shop. The rest of the unit is in a building with rooms that are about 12 × 15. four to a room.

Our email is still sporadic so I'll get this off. Have a great day

Update: The photos are now online here.