Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

After the turning of the tribes in Ramadi and the military defeat of the insurgents in Fallujah, coalition attention could be fully turned on al Qaeda with actionable intelligence.  The tempo of intelligence-driven operations is steady and effective.

• On October 6, 2007,  Coalition forces killed two terrorists, captured one wanted individual and detained another six suspects during two coordinated operations near Samarra. The wanted individual is believed to be an associate of several Syrian-based network leaders that support the flow of foreign terrorists. As Coalition forces approached the target area, they observed one individual jump from the roof of a building, attempting to evade capture. The ground force engaged the fleeing terrorist, killing him. As the ground force entered the building, they discovered an armed terrorist and, responding in self-defense, killed the armed man. In addition to the wanted individual, Coalition forces detained five suspected terrorists on site. Also in Samarra, intelligence reports led Coalition forces to an area alleged to be a terrorist safe haven; one suspected terrorist was detained.  Coalition forces captured two wanted individuals and four suspected terrorists during coordinated operations in Kirkuk. During one operation, Coalition forces captured an al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader believed to be involved in foreign terrorist facilitation in the al-Tamim province and detained four additional suspects. Nearby, the ground force captured the alleged leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq media network in Kirkuk. The suspect is believed to have numerous ties to senior leaders operating in the province.
• On October 6 & 7, 2007, operations against al Qaeda were conducted in the central and Northern parts of Iraq.  Coalition forces conducted an operation in Mosul targeting an associate of al-Qaeda in Iraq believed to be responsible for fuel distribution to the city’s terrorist network.  In Baghdad, Coalition forces captured a wanted individual reported to be involved in the planning and execution of numerous attacks against Iraqi civilians and security forces. The individual also has close ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders operating a car-bombing network throughout Baghdad.  In an operation in Tikrit, Coalition forces targeted an associate of al-Qaeda in Iraq believed to be involved in kidnapping operations, weapons facilitation and the development of improvised explosive devices. The ground force detained five suspected terrorists on site without incident.  West of Samarra Saturday, Coalition forces conducted a precision operation targeting an associate of an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader involved in foreign terrorist facilitation in the Tigris River Valley. Time-sensitive intelligence led the ground force to a location where two suspected terrorists were detained.
• On October 8, 2007, Iraqi Special Operations Forces conducted an early-morning raid to detain an al Qaeda in Iraq Amir for the Arab Jabour area who is suspected of being involved in small-arms fire, deeply buried and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks, as well as extra-judicial killings.

Groups of so-called security volunteers or concerned citizens are developing throughout central, Western and Northern Iraq, having significant successes against terrorist operations.

• Iraqi security volunteers uncovered a large weapons cache west of Hor Al Bosh, Iraq, Oct. 4.  While conducting door-to-door operations in neighborhoods near the village, the volunteers reported the find to Soldiers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st “Ironhorse
  

After the turning of the tribes in Ramadi and the military defeat of the insurgents in Fallujah, coalition attention could be fully turned on al Qaeda with actionable intelligence.  The tempo of intelligence-driven operations is steady and effective.

• On October 6, 2007,  Coalition forces killed two terrorists, captured one wanted individual and detained another six suspects during two coordinated operations near Samarra. The wanted individual is believed to be an associate of several Syrian-based network leaders that support the flow of foreign terrorists. As Coalition forces approached the target area, they observed one individual jump from the roof of a building, attempting to evade capture. The ground force engaged the fleeing terrorist, killing him. As the ground force entered the building, they discovered an armed terrorist and, responding in self-defense, killed the armed man. In addition to the wanted individual, Coalition forces detained five suspected terrorists on site. Also in Samarra, intelligence reports led Coalition forces to an area alleged to be a terrorist safe haven; one suspected terrorist was detained.  Coalition forces captured two wanted individuals and four suspected terrorists during coordinated operations in Kirkuk. During one operation, Coalition forces captured an al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader believed to be involved in foreign terrorist facilitation in the al-Tamim province and detained four additional suspects. Nearby, the ground force captured the alleged leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq media network in Kirkuk. The suspect is believed to have numerous ties to senior leaders operating in the province.
• On October 6 & 7, 2007, operations against al Qaeda were conducted in the central and Northern parts of Iraq.  Coalition forces conducted an operation in Mosul targeting an associate of al-Qaeda in Iraq believed to be responsible for fuel distribution to the city’s terrorist network.  In Baghdad, Coalition forces captured a wanted individual reported to be involved in the planning and execution of numerous attacks against Iraqi civilians and security forces. The individual also has close ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders operating a car-bombing network throughout Baghdad.  In an operation in Tikrit, Coalition forces targeted an associate of al-Qaeda in Iraq believed to be involved in kidnapping operations, weapons facilitation and the development of improvised explosive devices. The ground force detained five suspected terrorists on site without incident.  West of Samarra Saturday, Coalition forces conducted a precision operation targeting an associate of an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader involved in foreign terrorist facilitation in the Tigris River Valley. Time-sensitive intelligence led the ground force to a location where two suspected terrorists were detained.
• On October 8, 2007, Iraqi Special Operations Forces conducted an early-morning raid to detain an al Qaeda in Iraq Amir for the Arab Jabour area who is suspected of being involved in small-arms fire, deeply buried and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks, as well as extra-judicial killings.

Groups of so-called security volunteers or concerned citizens are developing throughout central, Western and Northern Iraq, having significant successes against terrorist operations.

• Iraqi security volunteers uncovered a large weapons cache west of Hor Al Bosh, Iraq, Oct. 4.  While conducting door-to-door operations in neighborhoods near the village, the volunteers reported the find to Soldiers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st “Ironhorse
  

Michael Ledeen’s new book The Iranian Time Bomb contains some brief but stark words that, in a nutshell, wrap up the worldview of radical Shi’a Islam concerning nation-states and how this concept is not a part of their world view.  In the words of Khomeini:

“We do not worship Iran.  We worship Allah.  For patriotism is is another name for paganism.  I say let this land [Iran] burn.  I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.

Michael Ledeen’s new book The Iranian Time Bomb contains some brief but stark words that, in a nutshell, wrap up the worldview of radical Shi’a Islam concerning nation-states and how this concept is not a part of their world view.  In the words of Khomeini:

“We do not worship Iran.  We worship Allah.  For patriotism is is another name for paganism.  I say let this land [Iran] burn.  I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.

National Geographic gives us what John Robb calls a low impact introduction to swarm theory.  It is interesting not only for the potential application to an insurgency (as Robb claims) but also for counterinsurgency.

How do the simple actions of individuals add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honeybees make a critical decision about their hive if many of them disagree? What enables a school of herring to coordinate its movements so precisely it can change direction in a flash, like a single, silvery organism? The collective abilities of such animals—none of which grasps the big picture, but each of which contributes to the group’s success—seem miraculous even to the biologists who know them best. Yet during the past few decades, researchers have come up with intriguing insights.

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one’s in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

Consider the problem of job allocation. In the Arizona desert where Deborah Gordon studies red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus), a colony calculates each morning how many workers to send out foraging for food. The number can change, depending on conditions. Have foragers recently discovered a bonanza of tasty seeds? More ants may be needed to haul the bounty home. Was the nest damaged by a storm last night? Additional maintenance workers may be held back to make repairs. An ant might be a nest worker one day, a trash collector the next. But how does a colony make such adjustments if no one’s in charge? Gordon has a theory.

Ants communicate by touch and smell. When one ant bumps into another, it sniffs with its antennae to find out if the other belongs to the same nest and where it has been working. (Ants that work outside the nest smell different from those that stay inside.) Before they leave the nest each day, foragers normally wait for early morning patrollers to return. As patrollers enter the nest, they touch antennae briefly with foragers …

That’s how swarm intelligence works: simple creatures following simple rules, each one acting on local information. No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do. Some ant species may go about this with more sophistication than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for example, can rate the quality of a potential nest site using multiple criteria.) But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required. “Even complex behavior may be coordinated by relatively simple interactions,” he says.

But breaking this down into Aristotelian categories, the fact that ants have no “leadership” may be an accidental feature of their behavior rather than an essential feature.  While ants may communicate with signals, smells and other things that only an ant would know about, these instincts and biological functions may be in fact the leadership which governs the colony.  Further, swarm theory may be applicable in societies which are governed by more strict individual leadership roles.

It is not readily apparent how this theory applies to insurgents who lack the biological features of ants, but given the rapid communication abilities of U.S. forces currently in Iraq, it is becoming apparent that they are swarming with respect to the insurgency.  Information flow is critical – it is the foundation for this swarming.  In Al Qaeda’s War on Iraq we discussed the killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader al-Tunisi several days ago.

“Al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders … the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle,

In Al Qaeda’s War on Iraq, we pointed out that senior al Qaeda leader and emir of foreign fighters Abu Osama al-Tunisi was killed along with two other terrorist suspects in a U.S. F-16 strike that dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a safehouse where they were meeting.  The Islamic State of Iraq confirmed his death today, and subsequently boasted of questionable victories for themselves.

“The war between us and them is a competition; they get us, we get them. Yesterday, we tore their bodies and their parts were scattered everywhere, and we killed them and they are still licking their wounds,” the Islamic State of Iraq said in its statement.

In a separate posting on an extremist Web site Monday, the Islamic State of Iraq issued a video allegedly showing an U.S. Apache helicopter being shot down by an anti-aircraft machine gun.

The short video, which could not be independently verified, shows brief clips of a man holding a machine gun, a helicopter flying and later landing with plumes of smoke rising from it. The video indicated the shooting took place on Sept. 25 in southwest Baghdad suburb of Hor Rajab.

The U.S. military reported last week an Apache helicopter that was fighting off a ground attack on U.S. forces was hit by enemy fire and made a hard landing south Baghdad. There were no casualties in the attack, which the U.S. military said took place on Wednesday.

It is a sign of their further diminution that they would make such a fuss over causing a “hard landing” of a helicopter.  The recent alliance of a few Sunni resistance groups together seems more a publicity stunt than anything with real meaning.  The same tactic is used by American corporate officers: when the company is failing, reorganize.  Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency is losing, and badly.  Unlike the Shi’ite militia in the South, the U.S. forces have taken the fight to them and won.  A few days ago and soon after killing al-Tunisi, coalition forcers disrupted another al Qaeda meeting which was being held for the purpose of electing another yet another emir because of the death of his predecessor.

Soldiers from the 2nd Iraqi Army Division, with U.S. Special Forces as advisers, detained 23 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists during an intelligence-driven raid in Sharqat Sept. 29.
 
Acting on intelligence, Iraqi Soldiers raided targeted locations in Sharqat to disrupt a meeting between al-Qaeda in Iraq leadership.  The meeting was held to elect a new emir since their previous one, Sabah Abdul-Rahman Abosh, was killed by Iraqi and Coalition Forces in a firefight Sept. 28.  The detainees are suspected of conducting terrorist attacks in the area.

Three hundred candidates appeared for a drive to recruit police in Ameriya.  “Allowing residents to take a stake in providing their own security for their neighborhood will go a long way toward denying Al-Qaeda the ability to move back into Ameriya,

In 2006 coalition forces intercepted a letter from al Qaeda high command to Zarqawi in Iraq, in which he was urged to stop the violence perpetrated against Sunnis.

“… be humble to the believers, and smile in people’s faces, even if you are cursing them in your heart, even if it has been said that they are “a bad tribal brother,

In 2006 coalition forces intercepted a letter from al Qaeda high command to Zarqawi in Iraq, in which he was urged to stop the violence perpetrated against Sunnis.

“… be humble to the believers, and smile in people’s faces, even if you are cursing them in your heart, even if it has been said that they are “a bad tribal brother,

In the Armed Forces Journal, Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile published an article entitled Eating Soup with a Spoon.  The entire article is highly recommended reading, but the quotes below fairly well capture the mood as Gentile responds to current counterinsurgency doctrine published in FM 3-24.  He argues that the revised doctrine:

… removed a fundamental aspect of counterinsurgency warfare that I had experienced throughout my year as a tactical battalion commander in Iraq: fighting. And by removing the fundamental reality of fighting from counterinsurgency warfare, the manual removes the problem of maintaining initiative, morale and offensive spirit among combat soldiers who will operate in a place such as Iraq … maybe we should stop, in a metaphorical sense, trying to eat soup with a knife in Iraq and instead go back to the basics and try eating it with a spoon. War is not clean and precise; it is blunt and violent and dirty because, at its essence, it is fighting, and fighting causes misery and death. The authors of the Army’s 1986 AirLand Battle doctrine premised their manual on fighting as the essence of war. Fighting gave the 1986 manual a coherence that reflected the true nature of war. The Army’s new COIN manual’s tragic flaw is that the essence of war fighting is missing from its pages.

I cannot possibly hope to recapitulate the breadth or depth of discussion in the thread at the Small Wars Council, but would hasten to point out several things concerning the discussion now that the subject has become a little more ripe and the argument is slowing.  First, I agree wholeheartedly with Gentile’s rebuke of the notion that counterinsurgency is “armed social science.”  Second, concerning Dr. Metz’s statement that “we treat counterinsurgency as a variant of war not because that is the most strategically effective approach, but because we have been unable to transcend Cold War thinking,” I respond that counterinsurgency has been a variant of war since at least the Roman empire (which faced a Jewish insurgency in Jerusalem), or even before.  In recent history, all one needs for proof of principle is the Small Wars Manual, published in 1940, well before the cold war.

Every successful counterinsurgency operation in the Anbar Province has at least begun with heavy kinetic operations.  Examples of kinetic and security operations preceeding reconstruction and rebuilding could be cataloged for weeks, but in the interest of brevity, only three will be given.

1. When asked by Michael Totten what the battles in Ramadi were like near the first of the year, Lt. Col. Mike Silverman stated that “It would only be a mild exaggeration if I compared it to the battle of Stalingrad. We engaged in kinetic firefights that lasted for hours. Every single day they attacked us with AK-47s, sniper rifles, RPGs, IEDs, and car bombs … I expected a huge kinetic fight, and that’s what we got.”
2. Before Operation Alljah could fully engage Fallujah, approximately two months of kinetic operations producing many dead and detained insurgents was necessary in the outlying areas.  Only after robust kinetic operations were completed could gated communities and biometrics be implemented.
3. RCT-6 is still actively attempting to rid Karmah of insurgents with kinetic operations, tie communications and relations back to Fallujah, and from Fallujah to Ramadi.  “Capt. Quintin D. Jones, the commanding officer of Company L, said ‘We are transitioning away from the kinetic fight and trying to help the local governance.  On one end I’m fighting, and on the other end I’m disputing between tribal leaders. The other part (is) trying to stimulate the economy. So, it’s a three-block war here and it’s very, very dynamic’.”  The tribal leaders in Karmah say that the Marines are the “glue holding things together,” and they are hoping that the “Marines will stick around until all the bad guys are captured.”

The Small Wars Manual has no such weakness (i.e., failing to consider warfare as part of war).  There are so many references to infantry patrols, cash disbursements for intelligence gathering, distributed operations (independent patrols operating without communication with command), census information and knowledge of prominent citizens that they are too numerous to list.  To have discussed distributed operations (although not called that by name) so early in doctrinal development of small wars is remarkable indeed!

While dated (discussing the use of mules for transporting materiel), the Small Wars Manual proves itself to be perhaps more contemporary than the currently in vogue counterinsurgency doctrine, because after all, conducting war still means invoking warfare.  Lt. Col. Gentile knows this; is he trying to bring the professional counterinsurgency community back from the brink of complete irrelevance with Marines and Soldiers who are fighting in their own battle space by moderating the influence of the “armed social scientists?”

In a Multinational Force update on Friday, September 21, 2007, Rear Admiral Mark Fox conveyed positive developments in Tarmiyah.

Earlier this month Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces conducted operations in the area discovering two (2) large weapons caches and detaining two (2) Al-Qaida terrorists.  Among the material found in the caches were ten (10) tons of ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil, eleven (11) fifty-five (55) gallon drums of fuel oil and various other explosives such as artillery rounds, rocket propelled grenades, as well as fully assembled improvised explosive devices.  One of the individuals detained was Mu’ayyad ‘Ali Husayn Sulayman al-Bayyati, who helped establish terrorist cells in the village.  Allegedly, murdered citizens in the main intersection of Tarmiyah and tortured young men in the area.  Al-Bayyati also known, as Abu Wathiq and the “executioner