|
|
|
Breakdown of weapons found in Sadr City from May 20 to June 2. Click to view. |
The US military continues to target the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the South as the Iraqi Army works to destroy Mahdi Army weapons caches inside Sadr City. US troops killed four Mahdi Army fighters in Baghdad while 39 Mahdi Army operatives were captured in Baghdad, Al Kut, Samawah, and Basrah.
US soldiers killed four Mahdi Army fighters during two separate engagements in the New Baghdad district. Two of the Mahdi fighters were killed after attacking US soldiers in the Shawra Uldir neighborhood with small-arms fire. The other two were killed after attacking US forces with rocket propelled grenades in the same neighborhood.
Fighting in the New Baghdad district has increased since the Sadrist movement negotiated a deal with the Iraqi government that allowed the Iraqi Army to move into Sadr City. US and Iraqi troops have clashed numerous with the Mahdi Army in New Baghdad, which borders Sadr City to the east.
In Al Kut, Coalition special forces teams captured a Mahdi Army Special Groups leader who is “suspected of being one of the top criminal leaders in Al Kut,” Multinational Forces Iraq reported. “The man has been identified as involved in the murdering of Iraqis and attacking of Coalition forces.” Five of his associates were also captured during the raid.
Al Kut is a strategic distribution hub for Iranian-made weapons, such as rockets, mortars, and the deadly explosively formed projectile roadside bombs. The Ramazan Corps, the Iranian Qods Force command assigned to direct operations inside Iraq, pushes weapons across the border from Mehran in Iran to Badrah and Al Kut in Wasit province. These weapons are warehoused in Badrah and Al Kut and distributed to Baghdad and cities in the center-south cities such as Hillah, Diwaniyah, and Baghdad. The Mahdi Army then uses these weapons to conduct attacks against Iraqi security forces and Iraqi officials, and Coalition forces.
Further south, the Iraqi security forces are pushing against the Mahdi Army. In Basrah, police arrested 16 wanted Mahdi Army fighters and seized several weapons caches. In Samawah, Iraqi soldiers captured 16 Mahdi Army fighters.
Basrah is a strategic hub for the Ramazan Corps, while Samawah is a tactical distribution hub. The Iraqi security forces are currently conducting operations in Basrah and along the Iranian border.
Iraqi Army continues to dismantle caches in Sadr City
The cease-fire between the Iraqi government and Sadrist movement in Sadr City has not stopped the security forces from targeting Mahdi Army weapons caches. Between May 20 and June 2, the Iraqi Army found 94 weapons caches containing 175 roadside bombs, 76 of the deadly Iranian-manufactured explosively formed penetrator roadside bombs, more than 340 mortar rounds, and “numerous” quantities of explosives and bomb-making AK-47s, sniper rifles, machine guns, and ammunition.
Multinational Forces Iraq varies the classification of EFPs and IEDs between medium and heavy weapons, depending on the configuration.
Over the past 24 hours, Iraqi soldiers and police have uncovered eight more caches of varying sizes. Iraqi security forces found anti-aircraft rockets, anti-tank rockets, RPGs, AK-47s, sniper rifles, mortars, rockets, and various other weapons and bomb-making materials.
8 Comments
While there have been some signs lately in these pages that the Iraqi Army is having to slow its pace because of lack of enough personnel – like in Mosul – they seem to still be doing business at a very rapid pace. Unless there is double counting or exaggeration that is a lot of stuff they are confiscating. With Iran recently finding a lot of money missing these losses must hurt all the more.
Given the sustained energy with which Maliki is going after the Sadrists and their Iranian backers it looks to me like the Iranians have alienated the moderate Iraqi Shiites nearly as much as al Qaeda did the Sunnis.
Seems likely that the moderates in Sadr City are sick of the Mahdi tactics. If the Iraq Army is acting professionally and seems there to stay, then why not alert them to a weapons cache and collect the bounty before someone else does the same thing? Hopefully this is the way things are playing out. It should be much easier for the average Sadr’ite to cooperate with the IA vs the “occupier”. Saying that only the IA was allowed into Sadr City under the terms of the cease fire may turn out to be a bit like Br’er Rabbit and the briar patch.
The pace is slowed as has the level of conflict. Sadr City is home to 2.5 million people with weapons caches store virtually anywhere, in any home, in any Mosque….ANYWHERE.
With the “ceasefire” intact this is allowing for IA personnel to search for the caches all the while providing for humanitarian relief.
As the IA battle-tested brigades are moving north from Basrah, then Qurnah, Amarah and now al-Kut, it would seem help is on the way with new IA brigades providing back-fill security in their wake.
As they progess northward it may portend to greater support in Sadr City and New Baghdad.
Joe Sixpack,
[It seems that now that AQI is weakened, Iran would feel less threatened by handing off some of these to them, just to make our lives more difficult.]
Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to throw its support behind AQI in order to expel the US from Iraq. Whatever it takes, they will do. The notion that AQI and Iran will not collaborate and that Iraq is a Sunni vs. Shia civil conflict are abjectly false. Iran has and has always had greater designs on the Middle East in general if but for those pesky Americans.
Dang them!!
That is my understanding, as well. But my impression was that Iran stopped short of handing off EFPs to the “Sunni” extremists. Given the string of successes against Sadr’s militia and cities throughout the south, I wonder if Iran will feel inclined to push EFPs to AQI for its last stand in Mosul. A bloody and protracted fight for Mosul could have a significant impact upon perceptions of the war effort in the US, impacting whether Americans buy into the “return with honor” versus “return on success” arguments and, by extension, impacting the US Presidential election and creating a strong mandate for one course of action over the other.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 06/04/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front lines.
Did anyone see that brief article posted on Drudge last night where some Iraqi official–I don’t recall the name–said that GoI planned for US forces to leave in 2009?
I know we are making good progress, but that just seems overly optimistic considering that IA still needs more heavy armor, more (any) artillery, and an air force that is more than just a few cargo planes. Even with some kind of “crash” program, it just seems overly optimistic to me…
It has been discussed here several times what the major consequences are of forces being stretched thin while trying to simultaneously maintain the current tempo of operations in Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. At the same time even more US troops are being taken out of the mix. Some new Iraqi units are now coming on line but it doesn’t quite make up for the shortfall. Thankfully, there is a strategic halt in the withdrawal to allow Iraqi troop deployments to catch up a bit.
I don’t think the American troop withdrawal will result in an imediate decrease in troop casualties. It wouldn’t be unexpected to see an incremental rise US and IA casualties as the pressure on remaining troops to keep up the operational pace leaves remaining troops to be further exposed a bit. I don’t think it will be so profound as to change the basic situation on the ground, no were near that. The militias are still being picked apart and barring a massive bombing of some sort, civilian casualties should remain low, or even possibly decrease further.
The objective for early summer will be to keep the current security improvements intact with post surge troop levels.