Jun 24 2007
Clearing Of Baquoba, Iraq Nearly Complete
The clearing of al-Qaeda and the Islamo Fascists from Baquoba is nearly complete, which is much quicker than I think anyone expected:
U.S. forces believe the initial combat phase of a major offensive to clear al Qaeda from the Iraqi city of Baquba is nearly complete and any militants left could be confronted in the next 24 hours.
The operation in and around Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala province, is a major part of one of the biggest combined offensives by U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Sunni Islamist group in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003.
“We will either make enemy contact quickly, or we won’t,” Colonel Steve Townsend, commander of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, told Reuters and another news agency late on Saturday.
“My company commanders’ gut feel is that there won’t be a big fight here,” he said after a briefing late on Saturday with combat captains in the bombed-out remains of a building, once used by al Qaeda as a clinic, on Baquba’s outskirts.Townsend said latest intelligence indicated some fighters were still inside an American cordon, which has been steadily tightened since the operation was launched on Tuesday, cutting off options for the militants to escape.
“They don’t have any choice but to fight … or put down their weapons and melt into the population,” Townsend said.
“The fight so far has gone a little easier than I expected. That does not mean there isn’t any fight left in them.”
It is possible al-Qaeda has melted back into the population or more were able to skulk out of the battle (maybe dressed as woman, as one or two have been know to do). But it is now clear al-Qaeda has lost its second declared capitol city of its modern caliphate. While the SurrenderMedia will ignore the importance of this, the PR damage to al-Qaeda in the Muslim world is clear. Two bravely proclaimed centers of the modern uprising of Islam’s take over of the world now lost to forces of the democratic Iraq government. How many people will be willing to die for a lost cause?
The truth is the tides turned on al-Qaeda because the Muslim street turned on al-Qaeda:
Two months ago, a dozen Sunni insurgents — haggard, hungry and in handcuffs — stepped tentatively into a U.S.-Iraqi combat outpost near Baqouba and asked to speak to the commander: “We’re out of ammunition, but we want to help you fight al-Qaida.”
Now hundreds of fighters from the 1920s Revolution Brigades, a Sunni insurgent group, work as scouts and gather intelligence for the 10,000-strong American force in the fifth day of its mission to remove al-Qaida gunmen and bomb makers from the Diyala provincial capital.
…
Each U.S. Army company in Baqouba, an hour’s drive northeast of Baghdad, has a scout from the Brigades, others have become a ragtag intelligence network and still others fight, said Capt. Ricardo Ortega, a 34-year-old Puerto Rico native of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The Army has given some of the one-time insurgents special clothing, a football-style jersey with a number on the chest, to mark them as American allies.
American commanders say help from the Brigades operatives was key to planning and executing a Baqouba operation, one of a quartet of U.S. offensives against al-Qaida on the flanks of the Iraqi capital.
The informants have given the American troops exact coordinates of suspected al-Qaida safe houses, with details down to the color of the gate out front, said Lt. Col. Avanulas Smiley, 40, commander of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment and a Takoma, Washington native.
Most of the Brigades members, whom U.S. officials call “concerned local nationals,” hail from eastern Baqouba, while the bulk of the fighting has so far raged in western Baqouba.
But with contacts among fellow Sunni fighters on the city’s west side, they have fed American soldiers critical information about al-Qaida positions.
This is why the operation in Baquoba is going so quickly. The foreign fighters, with their bottomless brutalities, have become the enemy and the Iraqis are working to purge them. And that brutality was al-Qaeda’s undoing:
In the Anbar region, al-Qaeda’s former stronghold and the place where the “Islamic State of Iraq” was founded under the leadership of this organization, gunmen started to apply the Islamic Law as they understood it. The number of foreigners increased and so did the competition for booties. Clashes between those people and other organizations were inevitable. As for the Islamic Army, it is upheld by clans whose leaders, opposed to the “UN State”, were killed and whose children’s influence diminished, especially when al-Qaeda demonstrated that it is not fighting the Americans, but targeting Iraqis belonging to other sects, and that it allows the killing of anyone opposed to its orientations, even if he is against the occupation.
Amid this chaos, the US army found its goal. It established contact with the fallen victim clans of al-Qaeda, held meetings with the Islamic Army, and ordered the Maliki government to arm them. It was the Anbar Salvation Council that took the responsibility of cleansing the Anbar region of al-Qaeda. It started to repeat this experience in the remaining regions, especially in Diyala, where it has been engaged in ferocious battles for days. Battles will soon move to Kirkuk, where one of the clans demanded to “join the awakening and strengthen the spirit of cooperation with security services in order to eliminate takfiris’ hotbeds in the region”. The call was on “all the clan’s divisions.”
It seems the Sunnis needed to take a trip into the darkness to see the light. They allied with al-Qaeda, based on their promise of a new Islamic age, and found themselves the victims of the Islamo Fascists. The realization of the Sunni’s mistaken reliance on al-Qaeda is interesting to see in how the Iraqi forces are greeted as they stand side-by-side with the Americans in removing the darkness from central Iraq:
Lt. Qusai had his doubts when he took his men into an insurgent haven in the western part of this city for the first time this week.
“Honestly, I thought this operation would never be successful because I had information that Al Qaeda had big guns and RPGs,” said the Iraqi army commander who provided only one name. “We thought that all the people here are terrorists and everyone is bad, even the women and children.”
To his surprise, many of the Sunni Arab locals welcomed the Iraqis who trailed behind U.S. infantrymen through their dusty, bomb-scarred streets, which shimmered in the blazing heat. One man offered them a tray full of glasses of water, and a woman wept at the sight of them.
“It was worst part of the city,” said the stocky, no-nonsense officer in camouflage and leather gloves. “But I found … that not all the people here are bad.”
The only thing missing in all this is the TV media beaming these stories into our living rooms every night as we see the true situation in Iraq. Al-Qaeda’s influence in Iraq has collapsed. It will not go to zero. Neither wiill the violence. But it is rapdily being deflated to a level normal for that region of the world. I refer back to the previous link for a vision of what is to come:
The US awakening in Iraq came late. However, it will create an entity or “province” for clans in the center. This region alone is the only remaining obstacle on the road toward a sectarian federation.
If this is true then the Surge will have done what it was designed to do. The Surge wass directed at the areas on people causing 80% of the problems in Iraq. And this time the threats were going to be removed for good, not simply chased away to take up operations someplace new. We will now see if there is any upswelling of extremism to try and pick up where al-Qaeda failed. But my feelng is the Iraqis have had enough of this nonsense and are ready to take over for themselves.
This is a country that was held under the thumb of Saddam for so long and stories of what happened under him spread by word of mouth.
After the fall there were scores to be settled by the hotheads of each side.
Then outsiders like AQ and Iran played their cards to pit both sides against each other.
After the mosque attacks and more than frequent bombing of civilian soft targets such as marketplaces and funeral processions and attacks on tribal leaders they finally said this isn’t working.
Considering how long it really took to get the surge troops in position and how many in the IA and the IP and also government ministries have “other interests” in mind and the sheer fact of moving that many forces in place with so many eyes watching it is really hard to get an element of surprise.
I tend to lean more toward melted in or moved to explain the situation so far.
However if they can hold and control the belt around Baghdad, it will make it harder for forces to get through the belt on their way to Baghdad, especially if the have checkpoints on the routes to get there.
Also the locals there are not dummies they also are looking at the Fatah/Hamas dustup and also hear about the infighting in Lebanon.
Lots of stuff in the mix.
Captain’s Quarters has the news that Chemical Ali is gonna bite the big one.
Chemical Ali To Hang
Another of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal henchman will swing from the gallows. His cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali”, received the death sentence for murdering thousands in Halabja, and scores of thousands more throughout Kurdistan, in the late 1980s:
His cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Aliâ€, received the death sentence for murdering thousands in Halabja, and scores of thousands more throughout Kurdistan, in the late 1980s:
Annnddd…………..he did it all without any chemical (WMD’s) weapons.
righttttttttt………..
I read that in Lebanon AlQaida is laying road side bombs to kill Lebanese soldiers and today 4 Spanish peace keepers were killed by such a bomb as well.
I wonder if the Spanish will run away from Lebanon as well. I think that perhaps AlQaida is busy wearing out its welcome all over the Arab world. The Egyptians and Jordanians are very critical of Hams and its its ties to such terrorists as well.
It might just be that sooner or later people will decide there is a better way to live.
“Neither wiill the violence. But it is rapdily being deflated to a level normal for that region of the world. I refer back to the previous link for a vision of what is to come:”
Here Aj shows his anti-Arab bigotry–the “violence” in Iraq was brought there by George Bush and the neocons. He is responsible for 700.000 innocents killed in four years. This exceeds per time ruled,
any violent atrocities commited by Saddam and of course many of the latter were committed when he was our “ally.”
As for Strata’s complaining that the mainstream media will not give the anti-al Qaeda actions the “importance” it deserves, he goes on to answer his own question as to why, when he attributes 80% of the
problems in Iraq to foreign jihad.
In reality no more than a few percent of Iraq’s problems are caused by foreign jihad, unless one wants to include the foreign occupation force as part of a US Empire “jihad” attempt to impose a puppet pro-Israeli/ pro-American government on the Iraqis.
Then the figure becomes 100%.
Here Aj shows his anti-Arab bigotry–
Please list the Arab countries that are pacific.
Now list the Arab countries where there is sectarian strife, violent factions and oppressive governments that do violence to their own citizens.
The sad fact is that Arab culture has both violent and vengeful components. Feuds and violence are a part of Arab culture. It’s not bigoted to say this, just the facts.
But then you are incapable of criticizing any culture but that of America.
And just what is wrong with a “pro-Israeli” Iraqi government? For the record, the Maliki government is hardly pro-Israeli. There’s been only one independent parliament member, Mithal al-Alusi, who has called for peaceful relations between Iraq and Israel. For taking this principled stance, he’s seen his son killed and has been targeted for assassination.
Rebbe
Not only do I recognize that the current government isn’t pro-Israeli, I have noted it on this blog many times , both to prove the futility of the neocon war’s political goals and to show a seemingly confused Strata that if the resistance in all forms had been vanquished years ago, the result would have been a conservative Shariah Law based
pro-Iranian government, not a pro-American puppet.
Prove to us that we killed 700,000 innocents…other than the inaccurate Lancet Report.
Terrye, looks like our American Jewish groups are getting furious with NYT and WaPo. Perhaps they will finally reconsider their votes in ’08?
And it looks like the Iraqi civilians are learning that there is a better way to live than under AQ or equivalent.
Good thing that AQ is being pushed out more and more.
AJ, keep up with the good news!
Terrye,
check this link:
http://wizbangblog.com/2007/06/24/new-york-times-and-washington-post-give-voice-to-terrorists.php
Looks like the Jewish groups are furious with NYT and WaPo. Perhaps they will be more careful with their votes in ’08?
And it appears more and more that the Iraqi civilians are learning that there is a better way to live than under AQ and equivalent terrorist groups.
Good!
AJ, keep reporting the good news. Looks like many of your predictions have come true. Well, perhaps the Appellate Court will make your predictions regarding the Plame story come true?
Hamas is not regarded as terrorist by either Russia , China or most of Europe. So what if the country under rule of “The Lobby” doesn’t
concur?
http://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=297
by the way, will Strata tek Syria off his list of Islamofascists now that it has arrested another bunch of Salafists?
Who cares whether Russia, China, or most of Europe not regarding Hamas as a terrorist organization?
Counterterrorism.org has someone working to convince EU to designate Hizbollah as a terrorist organization. Hope Sarkozy will convince EU to agree on such a designation.
Good for Syria to arrest the Salafists but no, Syria should not be taken off the list of Islamofascists since they continue to finance other terrorists.
Hamas is not regarded as terrorist by either Russia , China or most of Europe. So what if the country under rule of “The Lobby†doesn’t
concur?
Russia and China are now moral role models?
And what “lobby” are you talking about? Methinks I’m getting a whiff of a ohev yisrael here, as the Talmud would put it.
You haven’t read “Whose War” by Pat Buchanan?
Mearsheimer, Walt?
American policy in the Mideast has been run by dual loyalist
traitors on balance for the past several years, and dominated by
such for many more.
Sarkozy has invited Hezbollah to a conference I believe, showing his comparative respect. It’s to be hoped his ancestry makes him sensitive to possible accusations should he cave-in to collaboration with “THE Lobby” here. The French want no
part of America’s subservience to Israel, so if Nikolai wants
to honor his past, he’d better check out Chomsky and Norman
Finklestein on the subjects involved.
Fold your cards pro-war Strata-ites. This comes right from
the US military today:
“#
# The U.S. commander of a huge new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains. The Iraqi military doesn’t even have sufficient ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek. “They’re not quite up to the job yet,” he said. His counterpart south of Baghdad seemed to agree, saying U.S. troops are too few to garrison the districts he’s ridding of insurgents
The gains won’t be held and Congress will finally call the troops home-the sooner the better!
Once again, Patraeus said things will get worse before things get better.
You still have absolutely nothing new to post.
More conspiracies spewed by the center-copperhead, huh?