Quote Originally Posted by JWing View Post
Outlaw

Since the fighting started insurgents have been able to kill a generals before. June 22 a police general was assassinated in Baghdad. Also June 11 a general from the 4th Division was killed in combat in Awja, Salahaddin.

As for the fighting the Iraqis are hindered by a number of factors.

1) Most commanders are political appointees who have proven to be incompetent

2) The ISF were flooded with volunteers after Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa calling on Iraqis to defend the country. From reports these guys are getting anywhere from 3-7 days of training and then sent to the front. Some are just doing guard duty but others have been put into combat. These guys are obviously going to be a hindrance to combat effectiveness but strain an already bad supply system.

3) Iraqis can't shoot whether its regular ISF or the militias. I can't tell you how many videos I've seen of hip firing, putting guns around corners without looking or over a wall and blasting away a whole clip. I call this "going rambo". Again this is not only ineffective but wastes huge amounts of ammo on a poor logistics system.

4) The ISF can't hold any ground they take. ISF continues to go thorugh an area, clear it, and then leave allowing insurgents to move right back in. Ishaqi in Salahaddin for example has been cleared 2 times since fighting started. Yesterday there was fighting in Khalidiya, Anbar 2 days after the ISF claimed it had cleared it.

5) Disintegration. One report claims that up to half of the army's divisions are combat ineffective because of the loss of personnel & equipment from those first few days of fighting when the ISF collapsed across northern Iraq. Who knows how long that will take to rebuild all that.

6) Most importantly Baghdad has shown no strategy for who to counter the insurgents. Right now they're just trying to hold ground and kill their way out of the situation and doing a very poor job at that.

Overall I think the only way the government is going to be able to turn this situation around not only militarily but politically is if Baghdad finds Sunnis on the ground in local communities that it can ally with, and provide them with military and political support to fight insurgents otherwise the Sunnis areas will never be held and the larger complaints about Baghdad's discrimination against their community will never be overcome. That's not going to happen with Maliki and may not even happen if he's replaced. That's a major reason why I see this fighting going on for years.
JWing---it appears that the fighting has moved closer to actual Baghdad and now even in the south ie Basra area via car bombs and bombs in general---the Iraqi's are good at/for rumors--there is one going around that IS has in fact teams already inside Baghdad waiting for the go signal to launch strikes all over the city---anything on your info side to confirm or deny?

Think that yes the fighting will go on for years but politically the Sunni's as well as the Kurds are making moves rather rapidly towards separate states in the anticipation that Malaki is not going to cave and step down.

Which if one looks at the meetings today in Baghdad is where this is heading---Malaki lets everyone negotiate and when they are finished, tired, and have not reached any agreement he simply steps in and continues.

So I do not see him leaving anytime soon so the threat issued by al Humdan will occur.