Operation Bruins begins 

Approximately 150 Iraqi Army soldiers and 300 Marines and soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (2 BCT), 2nd Marine Division, began Operation Dhibbah (Bruins) in northern Ar Ramadi Saturday evening.Operation Bruins is part of a series of disruption operations in Ramadi and is designed to set the conditions for successful elections in December. The forces are conducting cordon and searches, blocking off known insurgent escape routes and searching for weapons caches. Operation Bruins comes on the heels of Operation Panthers which disrupted operations in the Sophia district of eastern Ramadi. During Panthers 2 BCT discovered weapons caches and detained suspected insurgents. Additionally, Bruins follows the Nov. 17 engagement where 2 BCT successfully repelled an insurgent attack in which 32 insurgents were killed in downtown Ramadi.The caches found during Operation Panthers, along with the recent capture of three high value insurgent targets, have been part of continuous disruption operations in the Ramadi area. Attacks against Iraqi and U.S. Forces in the Ramadi area have decreased 60 percent in the last few weeks, as a result of these ongoing operations.