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Thread: Iraq, Baquba, Arrowhead Ripper, and the Real Elements of Victory

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    Default 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.

    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...

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    Council Member T. Jefferson's Avatar
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    The limiting factor on any military success will be the degree of political reconciliation achieved.


    Mr. Gates arrived in Iraq to express Washington’s disappointment with the pace of political reconciliation under Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and to urge accelerated efforts to reach a series of political benchmarks to lower tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

    Mr. Gates also met with the American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, who said that no outside power could compel the Iraqis to reach accommodation.

    “These have to be Iraqi decisions and Iraqi compromises if they are really going to take effect,” Ambassador Crocker said. “We can’t come up with solutions as the United States and expect to impose them or impose timelines and say, ‘You’ve got to do this for the future of your country.’ ”

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    Default 10,000 US Troops Launch Iraq Offensive

    19 June AP - 10,000 US Troops Launch Iraq Offensive by Lauren Frayer.

    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.

    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).

    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."...

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    Default Offensive Targets Al-Qaeda In Iraq

    20 June Washington Post - Offensive Targets Al-Qaeda In Iraq by John Ward Anderson and Salih Dehima.

    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.

    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...

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    Default 21 June

    Washington Post - Dozens of Insurgents Killed in Iraq Offensive by John Ward Anderson.

    U.S. and Iraqi forces continued targeting Sunni insurgents in the city of Baqubah north of Baghdad on Wednesday, the second day of a major new offensive aimed at stamping out the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

    About 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops are participating in the new offensive, called Arrowhead Ripper, which began early Tuesday in Diyala province, a mixed Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish province north and east of Baghdad that, in recent months, has become a stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the most violent area in the country outside of the capital. Forty-one insurgents and one American soldier were killed in two days of fighting, the U.S. military said Wednesday...
    NY Times - Heavy Fighting as U.S. Troops Squeeze Insurgents in Iraq City by Michael Gordon and Alissa Rubin.

    Fighting was heavy in parts of Baquba on Wednesday as American troops continued to squeeze a large section of the city in an effort to rid it of insurgents believed to be part of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

    Soldiers moved block by block through the city, the capital of Diyala Province, clearing houses and removing roadside bombs. As they pressed in, American troops discovered a medical aid station for insurgents — another sign that the Qaeda fighters had prepared for an intense fight. The hospital, uncovered by troops from the Fifth Battalion, 20th Infantry, was equipped with oxygen tanks, defibrillators, generators and surgical equipment, as well as pieces of insurgent propaganda...
    The Fourth Rail - Battle of Iraq 2007 by Bill Roggio.

    A look at the largest offensive operation in Iraq since 2003

    Four days after the announcement of major offensive combat operations against al Qaeda in Iraq and its allies, the picture becomes clearer on the size and scope of the operation. In today's press briefing, Rear Admiral Mark noted that the ongoing operation is a corps directed and coordinated offensive operation. This is the largest offensive operation since the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom ended in the spring of 2003.

    The corps level operation is being conducted in three zones in the Baghdad Belts -- Diyala/southern Salahadin, northern Babil province, and eastern Anbar province --- as well as inside Baghdad proper, where clearing operations continue in Sadr City and the Rashid district. Iraqi and Coalition forces are now moving into areas which were ignored in the past and served as safe havens for al Qaeda and Sunni insurgent groups. As the corps level operation is ongoing, Coalition and Iraqi forces are striking at the rogue Iranian backed elements of Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and continuing the daily intelligence driven raids against al Qaeda's network nationwide...
    NY Times - Shiite Rivalries Slash at a Once Calm Iraqi City by Alissa Rubin.

    The Shiite heartland of southern Iraq has generally been an oasis of calm in contrast to Baghdad and the central part of the country, but now violence is convulsing this city. Shiites are killing and kidnapping other Shiites, the police force is made up of competing militias and the inner city is a web of impoverished streets where idealized portraits of young men, killed in recent gun battles with Iraqi and American troops, hang from signposts above empty lots.

    The unrest in Diwaniya, mirrored in Nasiriya to the south, reflects the emergence of a poisonous political landscape in which competing Shiite groups no longer look to the political system to allocate power. The government’s authority appears to have broken down, with the governor calling this spring for Iraqi Army units, backed by American troops, to restore order. Civilians, not sure where to look for protection, are caught in the deepening fear and uncertainty...

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    Default 22 June

    Washington Post - Troops Pushing South Through Insurgent Area by Joshua Partlow and John Ward Anderson.

    More than 1,200 American soldiers are pushing south along the Tigris River through a Sunni insurgent haven known as Arab Jubour, a formidable operation that is part of an overall U.S. strategy to take control of the terrain encircling the capital.

    In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, Americans are fighting in city streets to detain insurgents and destroy their bomb-making facilities. In Arab Jubour, south of the capital, they are moving amid dense palm groves and along dusty canal roads in a grinding door-to-door search that began Saturday.

    The operations, involving thousands of additional U.S. troops, came as the military announced the deaths of 14 soldiers and Marines in five attacks since Tuesday, bringing the total for that period to 15. Nine of the soldiers were killed by two large roadside bombs in Baghdad. Two died near Arab Jubour when explosives buried under a dirt road destroyed their Bradley Fighting Vehicle on Tuesday.

    In the first week of the southern offensive, known as Marne Torch, five suspected insurgents have been killed and more than 60 others detained. Another U.S. soldier involved in the operation was killed Monday...
    NY Times - In Sweep of Iraqi Town, Sectarian Fears Percolate by Michael Gordon.

    After two days of clawing their way toward insurgent strongholds in western Baquba, American troops on Thursday began one of the most delicate phases of the operation: reintroducing the city’s residents to their own army.

    For the first time since the assault began, Iraqi soldiers joined the operation in significant numbers. What made the task especially complex was that many of the Sunni residents had little trust for the Shiite-dominated army, a message that became clear during Company A’s sweep through the northwestern part of the city.

    The Sunnis have bad recent experiences with the Iraqi Army. The commander of Iraq’s Fifth Division, a Shiite, was replaced by the government this year after American officers accused him of pursuing an overtly sectarian agenda by arresting and harassing Sunnis...

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    " U.S. general: Al-Qaida fighting to death in Iraq
    ‘It is house to house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer’ "

    Echoes of Hue: 1/5 & 2/5, 7th and 12th Cav
    142 KIA
    roughly 1100 WIA
    Last edited by goesh; 06-22-2007 at 01:57 PM. Reason: historical perspective

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default 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.

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    Council Member AdmiralAdama's Avatar
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    Great piece by Michael Yon
    Surrender or Die
    On the scene of Arrowhead Ripper.


    The combat in Baqubah should soon reach a peak. Al Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Part of this is actually due to the capability of Strykers. We were able to “attack from the march.” In other words, a huge force drove in from places like Baghdad and quickly locked down Baqubah.

    Our guys are winning. Al Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummeled to death in this town, but the local Iraqi leadership is severely wanting.

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    Default 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.

    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...

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    SSI, 10 Jun 09: Arrowhead Ripper: Adaptive Leadership in Full Spectrum Operations
    In an article published in Foreign Affairs, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reflects on “whether formations and units organized, trained, and equipped to destroy enemies can be adapted well enough and fast enough to dissuade or co-opt them—or, more significantly, to build the capacity of local security forces to do the dissuading and destroying.” This question is central to the on-going debate over whether the Army has the proper structure and training to perform full spectrum operations. This monograph reports that 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) effectively operated as a “full spectrum” force during Operation ARROWHEAD RIPPER in the city of Baqubah, Iraq, from June to September 2007. The Brigade Commander organized the SBCT to conduct simultaneous kinetic and nonkinetic operations, task-organizing his brigade to leverage the Iraqi military, local leaders, and Iraqi systems already in place to accomplish his mission of defeating al-Qaeda and stabilizing the city of Baqubah. Ultimately, adaptive leadership, at every level, enabled 3-2 SBCT to operate in a full spectrum campaign.

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