US troops to be active in Iraq after pullback

American forces will still conduct joint combat operations even after they pull back to bases outside Baghdad and other cities as part of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, a spokesman said Sunday. Brig. Gen. Frederick Rudesheim, a deputy commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said the redeployment to the periphery will actually help improve security in the capital because U.S. troops can help stop militants from using bases in rural areas to stage urban attacks. "I want to leave it very clear that there's no cessation of combat operations," Rudesheim said at a news conference in Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone. But he said the troops will travel to the site of the combat operations from bases outside the city instead of outposts that were established throughout various neighborhoods as part of the 2007 U.S. troop surge. Meanwhile, the Baghdad-based independent Journalistic Freedom Observatory warned local and international media to use caution and body armor in traveling with Iraqi security forces after two Iraqi television journalists were killed in one of last week's bombings. Iraqi police and tribesmen also said gunmen last week killed six former detainees recently released from the U.S. detention center Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. The men were killed near the town of Hadra, between the northern city of Mosul and western Anbar province.