The Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda are unable to fight the modern weapons systems the US can bring to bear – even in the urban warfare required in the slums of Sadr City in Baghdad. Check out how our robots in the sky can detect, track and destroy Sadr’s goons with precision:

 

 

At 3:30 p.m. on April 20, a Coalition Force observation post in Sadr City was fired upon by three SG criminals and U.S. Soldiers returned fire killing one and wounding the other two.

At 4: 45 p.m., following a rocket attack, a UAV positively identified five SG criminals with rocket rails in Sadr City. Two criminals proceeded into a vehicle after loading it with the rocket rails. The other three individuals separated and went in other directions. The UAV followed the vehicle with the two criminals and rocket rails to a house. As the criminals were unloading the rails into the building, they were engaged by the UAV with one Hellfire missile, destroying the vehicle, rockets rails, and killing the two criminals.

Later, at approximately 4:50 p.m., an unmanned aerial vehicle positively identified two SG criminals loading a car with rockets and rocket rails in Sadr City. After following the vehicle in order to obtain a clear shot, the UAV fired one Hellfire missile, destroying the sedan, six rockets and rails, and killing the two criminals.

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“It is the Iranian-supported Special Group criminals who are the primary reason the people of Baghdad are suffering,” said Batschelet. “They are responsible for the rocket and mortar attacks that led to Iraqi Security and Coalition force Soldiers going into the southern neighborhoods of Sadr City. They are responsible for continued IED attacks and firefights that are causing innocent civilian deaths.”

More here on our efforts against “Special Groups” which is a moniker given to elements trained and armed by Iranians now fighting a civil war inside Iraq. My guess is Sadr and the Mahdi cannot give up because, once they do, the Iraqis will discover hard evidence of Iranian intervention. Which also explains why the Iranians are being so publicly supportive of Maliki and undercutting Sadr and his forces. Gives them the facade of being innocent – a weak cloak of plausible deniability. Here are some details on the pounding the Mahdi Army took in Nasiriyah recently. Needless to say the Mahdi cannot withstand weeks on end of these kinds of losses.

In the areas where we are chasing down the remnants of al-Qaeda there is also a lot of good news. Here is a report on the security successes in Western Anbar near the Syrian border:

Increased security brought about by military success against insurgents in the western portion of Iraq’s Anbar province is enabling a drawdown of U.S. forces there as well as enhanced regional reconstruction efforts, a senior Marine commander told Pentagon reporters last week.

“The insurgents, by and large, have been marginalized in western Anbar,” Marine Corps Col. Pat Malay, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-carried news conference from Camp Ripper, Iraq. Malay’s area of operations comprises about 30,000 square miles, an area about the size of South Carolina.

During a previous Iraq tour in Fallujah two years ago, Malay recalled, multitudes of foreign fighters were entering western Iraq from Syria. Today, there are very few foreign fighters in his area of operations, he observed.

If this is a quagmire or another Vietnam then let’s have more of it! And scratch some more AQ leader in the Mosul area where AQ has its last toe-hold in Iraq. And that arrest is probably linked to the capture of 19 al-Qaeda fighters in the area as well, since intel from one capture can domino into many others. These operations have resulted in more and more areas in the northern part of Iraq being cleansed of al-Qaeda, who are systematically being pushed out of Iraq:

After several months of combat operations in the northern Iraqi city of Bayji, tribal leaders and local officials have shifted their focus.

Full-scale U.S. and Iraqi-led operations have cleansed the area of numerous “high-value individuals,” crippling terrorist organization’s capacity to operate here.

The result of these combined operations has led to positive economic and infrastructure changes for one of Iraq’s biggest oil hubs.

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According to the leaders in and around the city, a defining moment for the Bulldog Battalion occurred during a recent meeting in Bayji between appointed city officials. For the first time since they arrived in Iraq, the focal point of a large gathering of senior officials wasn’t the security of the population, but rather meeting their basic needs.

“The focus has shifted,” said Lt. Col. Peter Wilhelm, commander of U.S. forces in Bayji. “Our efforts with Iraqi security forces have delivered a newfound sense of security for the people here. It is now time to build on that foundation.”

Sadr and his Mahdi Army are being decimated and we are still chasing down al-Qaeda and clearing them from Iraq. The two enemies of Iraq are promising a violent month ahead – but it would seem that their diminished capacity and the synergy being built between US and Iraqi forces is going to make that promise a bit one sided. I would guess there is a small uptick of casualties on our side and huge losses on theirs. And the losses will be such neither is able to recuperate and become a major threat to Iraq for many years to come. Yes, they will be able to blow up their fellow Iraqi Arab Muslims for news headlines, but they will not be able to create a following – except in the form of an Iraqi posse with the desire to lynch the killers of their family, friends and neighbors.