G.I.’s in Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al Qaeda
17 June NY Times - G.I.’s in Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al Qaeda by Thom Shanker and Michael Gordon.
Quote:
With the influx of tens of thousands of additional combat troops into Iraq now complete, American forces have begun a wide offensive against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia on the outskirts of Baghdad, the top American commander in Iraq said Saturday.
The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a news conference in Baghdad along with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said the operation was intended to take the fight to Al Qaeda’s hide-outs in order to cut down the group’s devastating campaign of car bombings.
The comments by General Petraeus were a signal that the United States military had yet again entered a new phase in Iraq, four months after the start of the so-called troop surge and a security plan focused on dampening sectarian violence within Baghdad. They reflected an acknowledgment that more has to be done beyond the city’s bounds to halt a relentless wave of insurgent attacks that have undercut attempts at political reconciliation...
10,000 US Troops Launch Iraq Offensive
19 June AP - 10,000 US Troops Launch Iraq Offensive by Lauren Frayer.
Quote:
About 10,000 U.S. soldiers using heavily armored Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles fought their way in an al-Qaida sanctuary northeast of Baghdad early Tuesday. American and Iraqi forces, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 insurgents, the military said.
The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province northeast of the capital, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said in a statement. The operation was still in its opening stages, it said...
19 June NY Times - Military Strikes Insurgents’ Positions East of Baghdad by Michael Gordon and Damien Cave.
Quote:
The American military began a major attack against Sunni insurgent positions here in the capital of Diyala Province overnight, part of a larger operation aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.
The assault — by more than 2,000 American troops in Baquba and more than 10,000 in the overall operation — is unusual in its scope and ambition, representing a more aggressive strategy of attacking several insurgent strongholds simultaneously to tamp down violence throughout the country...
18 June - The Battle of the Belts by DJ Elliot and Bill Roggio (The Fourth Rail Blog).
Quote:
With the last U.S. combat brigade to hit the ground over the last two weeks as part of the surge, Multinational Forces Iraq has declared the beginning of “major combat operations” in the belts regions surrounding Baghdad. The Baghdad Belts, which included Eastern Anbar, northern Babil, and southern Salahadin and Diyala provinces, has long been a staging area for al Qaeda and insurgent operations into Baghdad, and a key part of the Baghdad Security Plan is denying these regions to the enemy.
In the June 16 briefing given by Defense Robert Gates, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, General Petraeus explained that the past four months have set the stage for the "large, coordinated offensive operations" which kicked off over the weekend. The combat, logistics and intelligence pieces have been "put in place over the past several months," while a clear intelligence picture was developed of the regions surrounding Baghdad. "We have been doing what we might call shaping operations in a lot of these different areas [in the belts], feeling the edges, conducting intelligence gathering, putting in special operators."...
Offensive Targets Al-Qaeda In Iraq
20 June Washington Post - Offensive Targets Al-Qaeda In Iraq by John Ward Anderson and Salih Dehima.
Quote:
Thousands of U.S. troops waged a new offensive against al-Qaeda in Iraq north of the capital Tuesday, focusing in particular on the extremist group's bombmaking facilities, while at least 60 people were killed and more than 85 wounded in a massive suicide truck blast at a Baghdad mosque, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
American officials have said that the majority of car and truck bombs are built outside the capital by members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni-dominated insurgent group. But a preliminary investigation showed that the truck used in Tuesday's blast was rigged with TNT a little less than a mile from where it exploded, near the Shiite al-Khilani mosque
If that proves to be the case, it would mean that al-Qaeda in Iraq has shifted strategies once again, this time in reaction to increased security efforts meant to control access to Baghdad...
20 June NY Times - U.S. Seeks to Block Exits for Iraq Insurgents by Michael Gordon.
Quote:
In more than four years in Iraq, American forces have been confounded by insurgents who have often slipped away only to fight another day. The war in Iraq has been likened to the arcade game of whack-a-mole, where as soon as you knock down one mole another pops up.
Taking the fight to insurgents from Al Qaeda did not so much destroy them in Anbar Province as dislodge them, prompting the fighters to build up their strength elsewhere, including Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province.
So the planners of this latest operation are attempting to plug the holes that have allowed the insurgents to escape in the past. The goal is not merely to reclaim western Baquba from insurgent control, but to capture or kill the estimated 300 fighters to 500 fighters who are believed to be based in that part of the city...
Yeah, city fights are like that
Romans had the same problem in Carthage, Sixth Army had it in Manila and 2/5 had it in Seoul 18 years before they had it in Hue...
And someone will have it in another city in the future.
Iraq, Baquba, Arrowhead Ripper, and the Real Elements of Victory
CSIS, 25 Jun 07: Iraq, Baquba, Arrowhead Ripper, and the Real Elements of “Victory”
Quote:
...There also is the problem of creating an effective bridge between tactical victory and lasting strategic impact even if political conciliation does move forward. So far the Coalition has been virtually silent on progress in Baghdad, much less how such progress can be made in the new fighting outside it. Giving tactical victories lasting meaning requires the following additional elements:
1. Iraqi Army forces must begin to take over meaningful operations without US embeds and US partner units, and dependence on US reinforcement and support....
2. Iraqi police and local security forces must establishing a lasting security presence in the areas where tactical victories are won, and do so credibly in ways that give ordinary Iraqis security....
3. The Iraqi government must follow-up security with a meaningful presence and by providing steady improvements in services....
4. There must also be effective local government....
5. There has to be economic aid and progress....
6. There must be an end to sectarian and ethnic cleansing and displacement...
...One of the greatest single failures of the current approach to fighting in Iraq is that it does not track sectarian and ethnic separation and displacement and make ending this on a local and national level at least as important as halting major attacks and killings. It may take years to make Iraqis secure from Islamist extremists and the worst elements of Shi’ite gangs and militias. There can be no meaningful tactical success, however, unless Iraqis can be safe from their own neighbors and begin to lead ordinary lives in their own neighborhoods....
G.I.’s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants
6 July NY Times - G.I.’s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants by Michael Gordon.
Quote:
Capt. Ben Richards had been battling insurgents from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for three weeks when he received an unexpected visitor.
Abu Ali walked into the Americans’ battle-scarred combat outpost with an unusual proposal: the community leader was worried about the insurgents, and wanted the soldiers’ help in taking them on.
The April 7 meeting was the beginning of a new alliance and, American commanders hope, a portent of what is to come in the bitterly contested Diyala Province.
Using his Iraqi partners to pick out the insurgents and uncover the bombs they had seeded along the cratered roads, Captain Richards’s soldiers soon apprehended more than 100 militants, including several low-level emirs. The Iraqis called themselves the Local Committee; Captain Richards dubbed them the Kit Carson scouts.
“It is the only way that we can keep Al Qaeda out,” said Captain Richards, who operates from a former Iraqi police station in the Buhritz sector of the city that still bears the sooty streaks from the day militants set it aflame last year...