'Outlaw' city of Samarra raided by U.S., Iraqi troops Senior U.S. commanders had privately predicted that such operations would come in November or December because of chronic delays in training and equipping new Iraqi troops who would follow U.S. troops and assert civil order. But Dawoud offered Samarra as evidence of the government's determination to move sooner. "If this week we are not able to do three or four operations in the same time, probably next week or the week after or after a certain time you may see that we are going to engage many terrorist locations at the same time," Dawoud said at a news conference. "This is an indication that our forces are growing fast, well trained and in a very responsible way."