As the LAT announces another round of layoffs, the New York Times is raiding the LAT's Baghdad bureau like some kind of pasty-faced, black-clad insurgency.

It already hired Alissa Rubin away a few months ago. Now those islanders are poised to pick off Solomon Moore, the acclaimed former Baghdad bureau chief who has been on hiatus back in the states. Moore, after more than a decade at the LAT, reportedly is going to take an LA-based job covering the criminal justice system.

One saving grace for the LAT: it recently hired Ned Parker from the Times of London, who has drawn on more than four years of covering the Iraq war to break stories about a secret Shiite-run intelligence agency, terrorist recruitment in U.S. detention camps and fissures in Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi militia.

Put a few extra body guards on that Ned guy. We hear the NYT's "Shock and Awe" campaign has just begun.