The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of May 13, 2007.
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THE PAST WEEK in Iraq has been a mixed bag of political success coupled with several successful high profile attacks by al Qaeda. The situation is heating up in Diyala, and al Qaeda conducted a highly successful assault on a U.S. Army team operating south of Baghdad.
The search is on for the three missing soldiers who are believed to have been captured after a complex assault on a U.S. Army patrol on the outskirts of Mahmudiyah Saturday morning. Over 4,000 troops are involved, along with aerial and satellite surveillance and elements of the Anbar Salvation Council. Al Qaeda in Iraq’s political front, the Islamic State of Iraq, claims it has captured the three soldiers, but the group has not offered any evidence. Al Qaeda in Iraq will make every effort to exploit the captive soldiers both to influence its American audience and to shore up its base of support in jihadi circles and beyond.
In Baghdad, there has been very little change to the disposition of forces. The focus in the eastern zones of the city has been clearing Sadr City. Over 40 percent of the city was reported to have been cleared since the last update over a week ago. In the west, Iraqi and U.S. forces have moved forces into the Bayaa and Doura districts and initiated clearing operations after sweeping through the Mansour district last week.
Diyala province remains the hottest and most dangerous region in Iraq. The tribes of Diyala, tired of al Qaeda’s attempts at imposing a Taliban like regime through its Islamic State of Iraq, are beginning to organize along the lines of the tribes in Anbar province. Several tribes have banded together to form the Diyala Awakening and have vowed to battle al Qaeda. “Tribesman Sheikh Wameed al-Jabouri told al-Hayat that a number of tribes had signed a cooperation agreement to undertake this mission and to bring the city [of Baqubah] back to how ‘it used to be,'” reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. “The agreement could be considered ‘a national charter’ that proves their rejection of the actions of the terrorist groups, al-Jabouri said.”
This development comes as U.S. forces are finishing their surge and preparing to retake the province from al Qaeda. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the Commander of Multnational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division, briefed on Diyala late last week and stated “I do not have enough soldiers right now in Diyala province to get that security situation moving . . . We have plans to put additional forces in that area.”
“In Diyala province, we are working in a combined effort with Iraqi security forces to achieve tactical parity,” said Maj. Gen. Mixon. “The tactical situation there is very difficult, and the fight is ongoing. Across MND North, we’ll continue to work to improve Iraqi security forces, and they will become more capable, and we will work with the police units until they are fully established and capable of providing for their own security.”
Multinational Forces moved a 700 man Stryker battalion to Baqubah in March and have just deployed an additional Stryker Brigade, the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, into Diyala. “The most recent unit to have arrived up there is the 4th brigade 2nd infantry division, which is comprised of two Stryker battalions and one artillery battalion,” Major General William Caldwell said in a recent press briefing. The Iraqi government has stated it is deploying an unspecified number of Iraqi Army and police to Diyala.
Al Qaeda in Iraq is continuing its suicide bombing campaign in an effort to break both the Iraqi security forces and the will of the American people. Al Qaeda was able to conduct eight major suicide attacks nationwide. Three occurred in inside Baghdad. A suicide car bomber struck the near the Sadriyah market, killing seven and wounding over 40. This market has been the site of several mass casualty attacks. In southern Baghdad, two major bridges were hit with suicide car bombs, while another bridge was struck near Taji. Al Qaeda in Iraq attacked two bridges inside Baghdad in April and destroyed one of them.
Suicide car bombs remain al Qaeda’s most effective weapon. South of Baghdad in Kufa, the sister city of Karbala, al Qaeda struck with a suicide car bomb near a market, killing 16 and wounding another 70. In the Kurdish regions up north, al Qaeda conducted two major suicide car bomb attacks. The first occurred in the city of Irbil, where 16 were killed and over 70 wounded after a suicide truck bomber detonated outside the regional Interior Ministry. Al Qaeda claimed credit for the attack through its proxy Islamic State of Iraq. The second suicide car bombing targeted the local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Makhmur and killed at least 50 with more than 70 wounded. Early last week, al Qaeda conducted a dual suicide car bomb attack in Ramadi, killing 20 and wounding scores more.
On the political front, several significant developments have occurred over the past week. SCIRI, one of the most prominent Shia political parties, has made the decision to distance itself from Iran, while progress has also been made on the Sunni reconciliation front.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest Shia political party, has changed its name and shifted its center of political and religious support from the Qom school, led by the Iranian Ayatollah in Iran, to the Najaf school, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. This would “mark a shift from SCIRI’s current platform, which says the group gets its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran,” Reuters reported on Friday.
SCIRI has renamed itself the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, dropping the word “Revolution” from the name. While the source stated the name change was due to Saddam’s overthrow, the change is far more significant. The idea of revolution is closely associated with Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power in 1979 and the radical change Khomeini introduced into Shia politics.
Also, on the Sunni side of the political equation, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has backed down off his threat to withdrawal from the Iraqi government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has offered to give a greater role to Sunnis in securing their regions. “One Sunni Arab politician, Omar Abdul-Sattar, said 11,000 volunteers from Sunni areas west of the capital have been waiting for months to hear news about their applications to join the army,” the Associated Press reported.
The political progress came as the Sadrist bloc in Parliament pulled off a masterful anti-American propaganda stunt. The Sadrists pushed a draft of a non-binding resolution through the parliament calling for “a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and [demands] a freeze on the number of foreign troops already in the country.” The parliament would also have had the authority to approve the UN mission in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007. The Sadr aide claimed to have 144 of 275 parliamentarians supporting the bill.
According to Alertnet, the bill is actually a “petition, which is nonbinding,” and must be presented to the speaker. “Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that’s called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear.”
The Kurdish block backed the legislation but “only on the condition that the withdrawal timetable be linked to a schedule for training and equipping Iraq’s security forces.” The Sadrists didn’t include this requirement, prompting the Kurdish block to refer to the legislation as a “deception.” Expect the bill to be defeated when it comes to the full vote in parliament, as prior versions have been.
As Muqtada al Sadr’s political party plays games in parliament, David Satterfield, the senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Iraq, stated that the United States is certain that Sadr is currently in Iran. “We know he’s out of the country, we don’t think,” Satterfield told the AP. “He’s in Iran, which is where he has been since mid-January.”
Multinational Forces Iraq and Iraqi security forces continue to chip away at Mahdi Army cells that are working with Iran. Over the past week, Coalition and Iraqi forces broke up five of the deadly EFP cells inside Sadr City. Thirteen members of the EFP cells were killed and 23 captured during the series of raids against “members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.”
The Baghdad Secuirty Plan has just completed its third month. Sectarian violence continues to remain at a one year low, while car bombs have become al Qaeda’s most effective weapon in the fight for Iraq. The United States Army still has another brigade to add to the fight, and Diyala looms large on the horizon with Anbar having become something of a Coalition success story. Iraqi political progress has been encouraging, despite falling short of expectations, while al Qaeda has shown its resilience in adapting to the new security plan. General Petraeus has stated that it won’t be until September that success and failure can be properly weighed. At this point, it is certainly far too soon to pass judgment on the Baghdad Security Plan.
Bill Roggio writes on the war at billroggio.com. You can read daily updates on the war in Iraq from Bill Roggio at THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD. DJ Elliott and CJ Radin also contributed to this report.
