The Associated Press, Reuters, and a small Iraqi Independent news agency called Voice of Iraq released stories Thursday about the massacre of 20 men near Salman Pak, who were supposedly found decapitated on the banks of the Tigris River.

But something seemed inherently wrong with the accounts I read from the Associated Press. The only two sources for the Associated Press article were anonymous police, not located in Salman Pak, but from Baghdad (more than dozen miles away) and Kut (more than 75 miles away).

Because of this odd sourcing, I asked Multi-National Corps-Iraq and the PAO liaison to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior to investigate.

I published their preliminary findings as they came out in Bring Me The Head of Kim Gamel.

This morning, MNF-I PAO published an official denunciation of this story:

June 30, 2007
Release A070630c

Extremists using false media reporting to incite sectarian violence

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Friday, news media reported a mass killing in a village near Salman Pak where 20 men were allegedly found beheaded. It now appears that the story was completely false and fabricated by unknown sources.

Upon learning of the press reports, coalition and Iraqi officials began investigating to determine if the reports were true. Ultimately it was concluded the reports were false.

Anti-Iraqi Forces are known for purposely providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation.

“Extremists promote falsehoods of mass killings, collateral damage and other violence specifically to turn Iraqis against other Iraqis,” said Rear Admiral Mark Fox, spokesperson for MNF-I. “Unfortunately, lies are much easier to state, the truth often takes time to prove,” said Fox.

Not all media reports can be immediately substantiated by Government of Iraq or Coalition Forces. They must go through a process to verify such claims, to include checking with various Iraqi MinistryÂ’s, local police and security forces. Meanwhile, extremists have achieved their goal of spreading false information aimed at intimidating civilians and destabilizing Iraqi security.

Ultimately, media reporting based on verifiable sources will reduce the possibility of misinformation unnecessarily alarming citizens.

The Associated Press, Reuters, and Voices of Iraq should immediately apologize for publishing this completely false story, and push for immediate retractions. The Associated Press should admit full responsibility for not following good journalistic practices of verifying a story though legitimate responsible sources, as they were in a headlong, reckless rush to publish.

Update: Something somewhat related, from StrategyPage:

...the Japanese psychological warfare effort during World War II included radio broadcasts that could be picked up by American troops. Popular music was played, but the commentary (by one of several English speaking Japanese women) always hammered away on the same points;

1. Your President (Franklin D Roosevelt) is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal.
3. You cannot win the war.

The troops are perplexed and somewhat amused that their own media is now sending out this message.

(Thank Ace for the title of this post)

Update: AFP is now carrying the story.

The US military accused the international media on Saturday of exacerbating Iraq's violent tensions by reporting false claims of massacres which it said were deliberately fabricated by extremist groups.

This week several newspapers and agencies reported that Iraqi police had found 20 beheaded corpses in Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad.

AFP did not carry the report after its sources were unable to confirm the rumour.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Associated Press had those same standards?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:23 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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Luckily, alert paramedics called to a nightclub to attend a sick patron alerted police to a smoking car, who were able to diffuse it on scene.

The Guardian has the details:

A bomb made from gas cylinders, petrol and nails was found in an abandoned car in central London today, sparking a major terrorism alert.
Peter Clarke, the Scotland Yard head of counter-terrorism, said the device, discovered in Haymarket - one of the capital's main nightlife districts - could have killed or injured many people.

"Even at this stage, it is obvious that, if the device had detonated, there could have been serious injury or loss of life," he said. "It was busy, and many people were leaving nightclubs."

Mr Clarke added that police had gathered CCTV evidence, but said it was too early to speculate about who could have been responsible.

[snip]

Mr Clarke said experts called to the scene found "significant quantities of petrol, together with a number of gas cylinders". "I cannot tell you how much petrol was in the car as we have not had a chance to measure, it but there were several large containers," he added.

Earlier, witnesses said they saw the light metallic green saloon car being driven erratically. It then crashed into bins before the driver ran away.

Police are searching landmark sites across London for further explosive devices, and are unsure whether the bomb was a lone device or one of several deployed across the capital. No warnings were received.

The attempted bombing in one of London's busiest districts is the first major challenge for Gordon Brown, who just succeeded Tony Blair as Britain's Prime Minister.

At this time, police have not associated the bomb with any specific group.

Closed-circuit security cameras posted in the area may have captured images of the bomber. Unverified witness accounts state that the vehicle had been driven erratically before crashing into trash bins, at which point the driver abandoned the vehicle on foot.

Because the vehicle crashed, I'm not certain that we can assume that the location the vehicle was found was the original target. If the eyewitnesses are correct--and we know that sometimes, eyewitness accounts can be contradictory--it sounds as if the bomb may have begun smoldering, causing the driver to panic, crash, and flee the scene.

I'm sure we'll know more as this story develops.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:23 AM | Comments (60) | Add Comment
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It is with such mundane, rarely reported stories such as these, that counterinsurgencies take hold.

Thanks for stepping up, guys:

For a second time this week, a large cache consisting of improvised explosive device-making material and mortar rounds was turned over to Coalition Forces by the "Neighborhood Watch" in Taji, Iraq.

The Taji neighborhood watch contacted Coalition Forces June 25, after the driver of a truck fled the scene when the volunteers stopped a suspicious vehicle moving through the rural village of Abd Allah al Jasim. The vehicle contained 24 mortar rounds, two rockets, spare machine gun barrels, small arms ammunition and other IED-making material.

"This grassroots movement of reconciliation by the volunteers is taking off all around us. The tribes that had once actively or passively supported al-Qaeda in Iraq now want them out," said Lt. Col. Peter Andrysiak, the deputy commander of the 1st "Ironhorse" Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division.

The neighborhood watch is made up of a group of 500 volunteers, from a number of tribes in the area, who want reconciliation with the Coalition Forces and the Iraqi government. The volunteers are currently being vetted for possible future selection for training as Iraqi Police or some other organization within the Iraqi Security Forces.

Taji, 20 miles north of Baghdad, is perhaps most infamously known as the town where ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured in a 2006 IED explosion, and under the Hussein regime, the site of Iraq's long-range missile program. On Saturday, four U.S. soldiers based at Fort Hood died in an IED attack there.

While our soldiers are still battling Sunni insurgent IED cells in Taji, it is worth noting the seeds to a successful counterinsurgency are being sown in Taji and elsewhere, as noted yesterday in Small Wars Journal (h/t Instapundit):

On June 15th we kicked off a major series of division-sized operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. As General Odierno said, we have finished the build-up phase and are now beginning the actual "surge of operations". I have often said that we need to give this time. That is still true. But this is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing.

These operations are qualitatively different from what we have done before. Our concept is to knock over several insurgent safe havens simultaneously, in order to prevent terrorists relocating their infrastructure from one to another, and to create an operational synergy between what we're doing in Baghdad and what's happening outside. Unlike on previous occasions, we don't plan to leave these areas once they're secured. These ops will run over months, and the key activity is to stand up viable local security forces in partnership with Iraqi Army and Police, as well as political and economic programs, to permanently secure them. The really decisive activity will be police work, registration of the population and counterintelligence in these areas, to comb out the insurgent sleeper cells and political cells that have "gone quiet" as we moved in, but which will try to survive through the op and emerge later. This will take operational patience, and it will be intelligence-led, and Iraqi government-led. It will probably not make the news (the really important stuff rarely does) but it will be the truly decisive action.

When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation. If we don't get every enemy cell in the initial operation, that's OK. The point of the operations is to lift the pall of fear from population groups that have been intimidated and exploited by terrorists to date, then win them over and work with them in partnership to clean out the cells that remain – as has happened in Al Anbar Province and can happen elsewhere in Iraq as well.

The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain. It is about marginalizing al Qa'ida, Shi'a extremist militias, and the other terrorist groups from the population they prey on. This is why claims that "80% of AQ leadership have fled" donÂ’t overly disturb us: the aim is not to kill every last AQ leader, but rather to drive them off the population and keep them off, so that we can work with the community to prevent their return.

It is this kind of working within the community that makes this one small story in a large war worth noting.

The "neighborhood watch" that captured this cache is composed of 500 men from various tribes in the Taji area that once supported al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency. As Dave Kilcullen notes above, it is the human terrain that matters, and the fact that these men are now actively working against al Qaeda and the insurgency, are attempting to join the political process and the Iraqi security forces, that is far more important than an increasing body count.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:30 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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Well, we saw this coming:

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.

Britain's defence ministry would not confirm or deny the report, with a spokesman declining to comment on "intelligence matters".

An unidentified intelligence source told the tabloid: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran -- but nobody has officially declared it."

"We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot."

The Sun said that radar sightings of Iranian helicopters crossing into the Iraqi desert were confirmed to it by very senior military sources.

No doubt, certain harpies will "question the timing" before the sun comes up.

Jimmy Buffett Update: Searching for that lost shaker of salt.

Preferably, that salt will come in large grains.

I was careful last night when this claim was made to note in the headline that this story was linked to anonymous sources within the British government, and now that the Sun article has been published, I see nothing solid to which we could hang a credible claim on, other than the names of two British soldiers said killed by Iranian-placed bombs, Corporal Ben Leaning, 24, and Trooper Kristen Turton, 27.

According to Defence Internet these two soldiers were part of The Queen's Royal Lancers Battle Group, in Maysan Province, Southern Iraq, on Thursday 19 April 2007.

The story there reads:

Corporal Leaning was commanding and Trooper Turton was driving a Scimitar Armoured Reconnaissance vehicle which was providing protection for a convoy.

At approximately 1120 hrs local time, the vehicle was struck and badly damaged by an improvised explosive device attack, which killed Corporal Leaning and Trooper Turton and injured the Scimitar's gunner and two other members of the troop.

All casualties were taken by helicopter to Tallil airbase in Dhi Qar Province where they are receiving the best possible medical care for their injuries.

As it so happens, Michael Yon was there, and wrote about the attack in his dispatch, Death or Glory:

We had taken off nearly three hours earlier at 0830. At about 1120, the convoy entered the ambush. Eight of the 46 bombs detonated. EFPs tore through metal, ball bearings puncturing the vehicles, peppering them with holes. Major Edward Mack, who was at least six vehicles behind detonation in the convoy, heard two distinct explosions. He was approximately 40 meters from the nearest blast, and he reckons there was about 8 to 10 meters between the two.

WO2 (SSM) Steve McMenamy was about seventh vehicle back, 50 meters or so from the initial explosion. He felt the detonations and saw a massive black cloud. McMenamy cocked his weapon, jumped off the vehicle and took a knee, trying to assess what was happening. As the dust cloud cleared, McMenamy saw an injured soldier sitting down, shuffling himself away from the vehicle. McMenamy ran forward to check for casualties, but realized he was also running into contact, so he veered to the right and ran into culvert. He found Sergeant Jenkin kneeling and still alive.

“Are you all right?” asked McMenamy.
Jenkin grinned and answered, “No.”
McMenamy said, “Jimmy, look at me: I need to know if you are all right because I need to move forward.”
“I’m okay,” Jenkins said.

Trooper Callum McDonald helped Trooper Thompson into a drainage ditch where he was laying and moaning. Other soldiers rushed to help the wounded or to set up security. McMenamy moved forward to the stricken Scimitar, shouting to the crew, asking if anyone could hear him. He climbed onto the vehicle and saw that Turton, the driver, was dead. Climbing onto the turret, he searched for Corporal Leaning, the commander. As McMenamy crossed into the top of turret and looked into gunnerÂ’s side, he saw that Corporal Leaning was also dead.

Nothing in Yon's account of that day or his follow-up dispatch mentioned suspected Iranian involvement.

Independent of Yon's account, I contacted a senior U.S. officer in Iraq last night, and he was unable to confirm anything about the Sun story, other than that he had read it.

Like the "smoking gun" story I burned as groundless from the Independent Telegraph , this story does not have any credible supporting evidence to date.

I'll post more updates as I have them.

Another Update: Just heard from Yon via email. "48 IEDs, 46 were EFPs." He had to run (he's in a war right now, after all), and couldn't provide more info.

I have no context for this, so I'll leave you to draw your own inferences.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:01 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment
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1 I hope the Selective Service is up to speed because we're going to need a few more troops to fight a nation of 67 million people.

Posted by: David Terrenoire at June 25, 2007 10:23 PM (tk0b2)

2 If they're attacking us, then war it must be, I guess. I expect better proof than they came up with last time.

Posted by: Doc Washboard at June 25, 2007 10:57 PM (hmWdA)

3 Doc, I sincerely hope this is a false alarm. David, we've had this conversation before, but I'll ask again: how many folks do we need to draft to arm bombers, which will likely be the primary way we engage Iran? They have very limited air assets, limited air defense assets, and lots of distance to cover to attack U.S. regional forces with anything other than rockets or small-scale airborne insertions. We've got three or four carrier groups in the area, and an Air Force that is largely bored and very well armed. If we wish to simply defend Iraq, we can do so while inflicting tremendous "highway of death" type casualties.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 25, 2007 11:08 PM (HcgFD)

4 Um, are any of you guys actually looking at the source of this story? I've lived in the UK -- the Sun is about as reputable as the National Enquirer. It's not just that it's a Murdoch-owned publication with a semi-nude girl on page 3. It's that it's a piece of crap rag.

Posted by: Random Guy at June 25, 2007 11:25 PM (K1Emm)

5 The Sun? Not a very reliable source at the best of times. They publish online so you can go look; http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 03:25 AM (kkgmI)

6 Bob, I know you think an air war will win in Iran, but I don't think they're going to sit quietly within their borders while we bomb the bejesus out of them. If their troops are even now coming across the border (and isn't the Sun a Murdoch publication? so much for credibility), how will our ground troops hold off a full scale invasion? In the most optimistic scenarios I've seen, the British in the south will be overrun and our existing ground forces will be in a lot of trouble. And dealing long-term with 67 million Iranians, now unified against us, who will most certainly take up guerilla tactics will require many more ground troops than we have now. But if it comes to war, I pray you're right and I'm wrong.

Posted by: David Terrenoire at June 26, 2007 05:26 AM (tk0b2)

7 David, do you really think that 67 million Iranians are unified, or would be unified, behind that government? Bob, nice catch.

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 07:58 AM (yTndK)

8 "Like the "smoking gun" story I burned as groundless from the Independent" *ahem* The Daily Telegraph I think you'll find. The Indy is about as antiwar as a newspaper gets in the UK, and if they published a story about Iranian interference in Iraq I would definitely sit up and listen. As for the Sun, I wouldn't trust them if they told me the sun would rise in the morning. You've made the right call in backing away from them as a source. "do you really think that 67 million Iranians are unified, or would be unified, behind that government?" If we bomb them to bits? You betcha. If you bomb Iran you will end up having to go in with ground troops or nuke them, that should really be the starting point of discussions. We've had enough of hoping for the best.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 08:22 AM (kkgmI)

9 If you bomb Iran you will end up having to go in with ground troops or nuke them, that should really be the starting point of discussions. So be it! It is long past the point when we should have made an example out of Iran, or some other Muslim country. I'm for frying the whole lot at this point.

Posted by: Trader-DFW at June 26, 2007 08:59 AM (VZI8r)

10 "So be it! It is long past the point when we should have made an example out of Iran, or some other Muslim country. I'm for frying the whole lot at this point." So you're up for a bit of pre-emptive genocide, are you? At least we know where you stand. On the side of incinerating millions of women and children simply because of where they live. I'm glad that I stand on the other side. Anyone else here in favour of pre-emptively nuking Iran?

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 09:04 AM (kkgmI)

11 Let me make one thing very clear: the next person who advocates genocide--randomly wiping out an entire culture based upon differing belielfs or culture--gets banned. I support the war in Iraq because I once worked for a wonderful man, a Baghdadi, and I've had conversations with other natives of Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. They were all mostly secular, and all kind, gracious, and democracy-loving people, which is no doubt why they came here when they could. Others without the fianancial resources to leave are stuck in these nations, and live and die on the whims of petty tyrants, zealots, and dictators. These people deserve a chance at a better life; they do not deserve to have some dolt casually dismiss them as worth quashing like a bug. If you cannot differentiate between the general public and their sometimes extremist leaders and governments, pleas, find somewhere else to post.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 26, 2007 09:10 AM (9y6qg)

12 "If you cannot differentiate between the general public and their sometimes extremist leaders and governments, pleas, find somewhere else to post." *applause* But that's what concerns me so much about the militarily hyped up state of people at the moment. It seems pretty clear that if you bomb the Iranians, they will respond with; 1) Terrorist attacks around the globe (which they will deny of course). 2) Attacks on shipping in Hormuz (probably mines too). 3) Running to their patrons, the Chinese and Russians for diplomatic defense. 4) Running pretty much 24 hour shows of maimed and killed innocents, particularly children (if they have to they'll mock up a few in a heartbeat but I doubt they'd have to). 5) Actively arming Iraqi Shiite groups with high end weapon systems such as SAMs and explosives, and then leaving those groups to do what they want with them (and they will want to shoot Americans and Brits). These 5 actions seem to me to be extremely likely, and a bombing campaign is unlikely to stop any of them. If this happens then what is the US to do? Watch the Brits get slaughtered in Basra? Witness an uprising from the Shiite masses? Iran could run that game at a range of different settings for decades, they have the staying power to do it. So what is the response? More bombings? What with the Russians and the Chinese making uncomfortable noises and the round the clock "Maimed-Iranian-Baby-Cam" newscasts, the US would need a quick resolution or any government would fall come the next elections. So that leaves you with invading and replacing the regime by force against what would now be an overwhelmingly hostile population or nuking the place to keep it quiet. I hope that anyone with an ounce of humanity would renounce the nuking option, so you get left with a ground invasion, this time completely alone. That invasion would be very difficult and a long term occupation would be impossible. Setting up a government would also be impossible. The only objective would be to set up Iran as a failed state in order to reduce its military abilities. This wouldn't do anything to stop Iranian sympathisers from runnning terrorist cells around the globe, but it would at least stop Iranian interference in Iraq, for what that is worth. Looked at like that (and there is nothing extreme or unlikely about that scenario, just people behaving as people and state behaving as states) we cannot afford to go to war with Iran, almost regardless of what they do. In my view anyone who advicates a bombing campaign against Iran should be willing to accept either the nuclear option, or a ground invasion. If you aren't willing to accept these outcomes then bombing Iran is off the table and we should be looking at the alternatives.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 09:31 AM (kkgmI)

13 Iran has blood on their hands and anyone who says different has their heads in the sand. I am a military officer who spent a year 12 miles from the Iranian boarder in Iraq. I have no direct evidence, but heard plenty of Intel reports about Iranian involvement and reports of them being captured by us and the Kurds. EFPs... google it. Iran has lots of oil, but ONLY 1 oil refinery and a economy that is on the brink of collapse. I am not a fan of invading Iran or of throwing a missle here or there (ala clinton style) to "show them who's the boss". I would like to see us do SOMETHING. This "what if they invaded Canada" crap I saw on the "smoking gun" page is just BS moral equivalency and belongs on DKOS. We don't have a few private groups supporting the insurgency in Iraq. We have the government of Iran, using it's military (Quds force) special forces to actively arm, train, and sometimes fight alongside the insurgents in Iraq. This fits the model they they used for Hezbollah (who has been killing Americans for a long time now). Then you have the naval attacks on the Australians and the UK in the gulf as well as the cross boarder ambush on the Iraqi/82d ABN soldiers patrolling the Iran/Iraq boarder. That was in Time Magazine, I believe and all three incidents involved active duty Iranian military units crossing an international boarder and attacking coalition soldiers. Not exactly 'out of character'. Come on... it's totally "Fake but accurate". You all can lament about how a. proud you are to be the first to debunk this story or b. how this is all just another evil BushHitler nazi conspiracy or c. how we'd do the same thing in a similar situation... but NONE of it changes the fact that Iran has been targeting Americans and killing them for a few decades now. They love we are in Iraq and I say we withdrawl from Iraq, bomb that stupid refinery (in conjunction with as strike on that wacky president and mullah) and a naval blockade of the gulf. This is like raising a kid or dealing with problem soldiers. You have to ID your expectations, set reasonable limits and punishments/consequences for going outside those limits. I don't think that "don't kill our soldiers or arm and train criminals/terrorists to do so either" is unreasonable) Then when they violate that, you have to follow through or they have no respect for you. This is why Saddam had no respect for the US or the UN (actually does anyone really respect the UN?). This is why Iran thinks it can get away with the crap they are pulling (even though they know, we know they are doing it). Iraq, while it makes me sick to admit it, is no longer worth the effort. We can win it, but we will not muster the 'national will' to do so. There has never been an administration that has blown so much political capital or opportunities as this one. We lost the trust of the Iraqi people a long time ago. Incompetent planning (by politicians not soldiers) and risk adverse politics micromanaging a war lost us this one before it even started. Then political posturing squashed any chance of turning it around.

Posted by: Brad at June 26, 2007 09:41 AM (hQuOd)

14 Note that the market opened up this morning. If this were real then the market would crash.

Posted by: David Caskey at June 26, 2007 09:47 AM (G5i3t)

15 Pablo, I do think bombing Iran would unite the country. Look at how divided this country is. Last week I saw a bumper sticker that said "Beautify America. Kill A Liberal." Yes, I know it was a joke. A joke about killing your neighbor or co-worker because he thinks universal health care is a good thing. Now remember how united we were after 9/11. So yes, if you want to ally the large, moderate, pro-western middle class in Iran with the extremist mullahs, start a bombing campaign. This would be insanity. Along with the consequences Rafar concisely points out, consider this: China gets most of its oil from Iran. If we disrupt their oil supply, they might get a bit peeved. Right now, thanks to Bush economics, China holds notes on our house. The economy would take a giant hit if China started dumping dollars on the market in retaliation for an invasion. And that's the least they could do. In other words, we're seriously screwed.

Posted by: David Terrenoire at June 26, 2007 09:53 AM (kxecL)

16 A joke about killing your neighbor or co-worker because he thinks universal health care is a good thing. ...or maybe because they want us to lose.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 26, 2007 09:58 AM (9yWTK)

17 Yeah, Purple Avenger, I want us to lose. Me, a guy with two family members in country. Me, a guy from a military family. Me, a veteran, I want us to lose. Nice contribution to the discussion.

Posted by: David Terrenoire at June 26, 2007 10:01 AM (kxecL)

18 Rafar - Your 9:31 - We've already been there or are there with your numbers 1, 2 and 5 with respect to Iran, although in number 5 you might want to slip in the word Sunni as well.

Posted by: daleyrocks at June 26, 2007 10:11 AM (0pZel)

19 "We've already been there or are there with your numbers 1, 2 and 5 with respect to Iran" At extremely low levels, yes. And we are without doubt engaged in special ops within Iran, and are funding the enemies of the Iranian state. This is a very low intensity conflict at the moment. Bombing Iran directly would lead to a vastly increased level of these actions. This would lead to a cycle of escalation that would lead inevitably to one of the two outcomes that I outlined. Though, out of interest, which terrorist actions around the globe have been Iranian run recently? ", although in number 5 you might want to slip in the word Sunni as well." I will when you offer convincing evidence that I should. Either way, the equation is the same. Are the benefits of bombing Iran worth the cost of having to run a ground invasion or nuclear attack?

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 10:22 AM (kkgmI)

20 Yankee, I don't know how closely you've been following the EFP story, but the US is on the record saying that components for these are being manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq by Quds Force. We even caught some convoys with EFP components coming over the border recently. So if Yon says 46 of 48 IEDs were EFP type, that means about 95% of the IEDs he's referring to were Iranian supplied. I'd love to hear more from him on this, but it sounds like what he's saying in his shorthand way is "Yeah, the Iranians did it."

Posted by: John at June 26, 2007 10:34 AM (NcsIb)

21 Gentlemen, I'm becoming more convinced with each passing day that it is the Iranian government's specific intention to provoke a war, but to do so in such a way as they might be able to blame others. Their economy is tanking, and the regime is extremely unpopular at home and growing more so each day. They continue down a path with nuclear development designed to provoke the ire and concern of western nations, and back that with genocidal rhetoric and threats. I think it is quite possible that Rafar may very well be right in his five assumptions of what Iran will try to do. All that said, Iran is trapped by geography and culture, and is far more vulnerable than most realize. They have more than 150,000 American servicemen to their west, along with thousands of Iraqi troops with long memories that would likely lay down their secular divisions to fight their natural enemies once more if attacked. Perhaps you haven't been following Iraqi Shia culture, but as I understand it, the Shia, be they JAM or Badr-alligned, gladly take Iranian money, political support, and munitions, but they would--in general--break against Iran if Iran attacked Iraq. Sunni insurgents and tribes would almost certainly join U.S. forces as well, as an Iranian-dominated Iraq would be their worst nightmare. There would no doubt be terrorist attacks by groups already within Iraq against our forces and Iraqi forces if such a conflict borke out, but those launching such attacks would probably be destroyed rather quickly, by either the military and security forces they attack, or angry Iraqi tribesmen and other citizens. Iran is bordered on the west by an small but potentially deadly NATO force that includes U.S. forces. They would not be a great threat, but they would, at the very least, force Iran to divide their attention and their assets. To their south is the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Let Iran shut down the Perisan Gulf, if they dare. Such an action cuts two ways, as U.S. surface and sub-surface groups in the Gulf of Oman can blockade all gas going into a fuel-starved Iran at minimal risk to our forces, and unmanned cruise missiles targeting their few aging refinaries and velnerable pipeline systems would have them choked off and their military and economy ground to a literal halt within weeks. This does not take into account possible actions by other Sunni nations in the region as a result of Iran possibly targetting their assets as part of an attempt to close gulf shipping. Saudi Arabia has a modern and substantial Air Force, and would almost assuredly retaliate if Iran attempted to hit their tankers or prots, which is what some analysts think may be part of the Iranian plan. Further way, if terror attacks are launched against western nations in this hemisphere, Europe, or Israel, public resolve will only free our military to wage what would surely be the most devastating air attack in history. Iran's navy would be destroyed in days, as would their remaining Air Force. Most of their generally obsolete ground forces, nake to U.S. spy satellites and drones, would be shredded, whether on the march, or bunkered down. Toothless, and without fuel, I believe we'd allow Iran to have a peace, at which point a defanged regime would have very few credible threats or resources to keep it in power. A ground invasion? Simply not needed. I think too many erroneously conflate the course of action we took in Iraq as the only option for dealing with other regimes in the region, and that simply isn't the case.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at June 26, 2007 10:37 AM (9y6qg)

22 "Perhaps you haven't been following Iraqi Shia culture, but as I understand it, the Shia, be they JAM or Badr-alligned, gladly take Iranian money, political support, and munitions, but they would--in general--break against Iran if Iran attacked Iraq." I would say that this is certainly true (though maybe not for the actual forces in the Badr brigade, but certainly for the civilians surrounding them), in the case of Iranian invasion. But we're not talking about Iranian invasion, we're talking about Iranian response to an attack. If Iran were attacked by the US, those same Iraqis have stated publicly, and would almost certainly carry through on, a promise to attack US forces in Iraq in response. This is quite a different situation. In one we have the Despised Persians attacking Iraq (why would they, they are natural allies) in the other we have Iraqis defending their Muslim brothers from attack by the Despised US. I suspect that US and UK forces would be forced between a rock and a hard place. What do they then do when one of the dominoes falls? If Pakistan rises up (they get touchy enough about knighthoods, how do you think they will feel about another invasion), is Shiites in Saudi rise up? Frankly, the world is in too delicate a state to take this sort of action. "Further way, if terror attacks are launched against western nations in this hemisphere, Europe, or Israel, public resolve will only free our military to wage what would surely be the most devastating air attack in history." The problem here is that, as far as I know, Air War has proven to be pretty poor at achieving the aims set for it. Witness Iraq, Lebanon, Britain, Germany, Japan (caveat for nukes which do work), etc, etc. It is constantly hyped as the big thing, but it just as consistently fails to deliver. One could probably argue that Serbia is an exception, but still ground troops needed to be present for it to achieve anything. In addition, the most devestating effect of the war would be the complete loss of Iran's oil to the world, along with whatever additional losses they could cause to other oil producers around the region. With world supply barely meeting demand very ugly times would be the result. To be honest I have been feeling like it is 1914 for a while now. Powers seem to be moving inexorably towards what could prove to be a disasterous conflict for very unclear and misguided reasons. And who'll still be laughing in his cave as the West pulls itself apart, alliances between the Great powers crumble, the filthy Kafirs in Iran are crushed, hatred of the US is spread far and wide, and the world economy tumbles into a new great depression? Yes, that's right, the Bearded Git himself. I just don't think that I could take the gloating.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 10:59 AM (kkgmI)

23 Rafar, If we bomb them to bits? Let's refine that. If we were to hit Natanz, is that "bombing them to bits"? If they massed ground forces poised to invade Iraq and we took them out, is that "bombing them to bits"? And if we took either of those actions, why on Earth would we want to send ground forces in? Bob, Gentlemen, I'm becoming more convinced with each passing day that it is the Iranian government's specific intention to provoke a war, but to do so in such a way as they might be able to blame others. Exactly right. And there are ways we can contain them with military force, if need be, without giving them the all out war they seem to be pursuing. Their economy is tanking, and the regime is extremely unpopular at home and growing more so each day. They continue down a path with nuclear development designed to provoke the ire and concern of western nations, and back that with genocidal rhetoric and threats. Also right, and that can be leveraged. The likelihood that 67 million Iranians are going to prostrate themselves for Khameni and his legion of goons is low.

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:01 AM (yTndK)

24 "If we were to hit Natanz, is that "bombing them to bits"? If they massed ground forces poised to invade Iraq and we took them out, is that "bombing them to bits"? And if we took either of those actions, why on Earth would we want to send ground forces in?" You hit Natanz, they hit the straights, you blow up their refinery, they send a thousand SAMs into Iraq and blow up Congress, you bomb Tehran, Iraqi Shiites overrun a US army base. It isn't the exact sequence of events I'm talking about here, just the option of escalation or not. If you bomb them you start the inexorable march of escalation and it will end up with, in the most optimistic scenarios, a crushed and destitute Iran which provides a breeding ground for just the sort of hatred and terrorism that lead to 911, along with a smashed world economy. Or you could try not escalating and seeing if a better outcome is possible.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 11:08 AM (kkgmI)

25 Or you could try not escalating and seeing if a better outcome is possible. They've got quite a bit of say in that, don't you think?

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:27 AM (yTndK)

26 And why on Earth would we bomb Tehran? If your scenario began to play out, we'd be taking out the SAM's, not the citizenry.

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:34 AM (yTndK)

27 "They've got quite a bit of say in that, don't you think?" Yes, they have. And they haven't done anything more than the US is doing to them. They're arming Shiites in Iraq? Well, so is the US. They're training and funding their political pets? Well, so is the US. They capture allied troops in blatantly outrageous circumstances, the US has captured Iranian diplomats (with or without scare quotes) in blatantly outrageous circumstances. As far as the Iranians are concerned the US and UK are running terrorist groups inside Iran, and I imagine that they are a little suspicious about those passenger jets full of Revolutionary Guards commanders that keep crashing on takeoff. As far as I can tell, most alleged or actual Iranian moves have been counters to US actions, it is just that, from our perspective, it is much easier to view their actions as much more outrageous because they are against us. What Iran hasn't done, as far as I can tell, is directly attack US forces. Similarly, the US hasn't directly attacked Iranian forces.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 11:38 AM (kkgmI)

28 "And why on Earth would we bomb Tehran?" In retaliation for the bombing of the US Congress by a truck bomb. In my wholly made up and not necessarily accurate prediction. It isn't the 'how' that is important here, it is the process. You ramp up, they ramp up in response. Once you get in that cycle national pride, vanity of leaders and military necessity kick in and before you know it you're in the middle of a disasterous war. It isn't as if this sort of thing hasn't happened before.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 11:42 AM (kkgmI)

29 As far as I can tell, most alleged or actual Iranian moves have been counters to US actions, it is just that, from our perspective, it is much easier to view their actions as much more outrageous because they are against us. Nukes? Hezbollah? EFP's? Are we the Lebanese? Are we the Iraqis?

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:43 AM (yTndK)

30 What Iran hasn't done, as far as I can tell, is directly attack US forces. Remember this? In retaliation for the bombing of the US Congress by a truck bomb. One, you're not going to truck bomb Congress, ever. It's physically impossible. Two, why would we then bomb Tehran? We act strategically, not emotionally.

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:50 AM (yTndK)

31 It isn't the 'how' that is important here, it is the process. You ramp up, they ramp up in response. Once you get in that cycle national pride, vanity of leaders and military necessity kick in and before you know it you're in the middle of a disasterous war. See Iraq, 1991-2003.

Posted by: Pablo at June 26, 2007 11:52 AM (yTndK)

32 Rafar, So who is the US equivalent of Hamas in your view? And using the word diplomats (with or without scare quotes) to refer to the Irbil six makes it sound like you're buying the Iranian line wholesale. Do you think those guys were diplomats? I don't. The US captured Iranian insurgents actively promoting the killing of our soldiers in Iraq. In return the Iranians attempted a direct reprisal by infiltrating a US base and kidnapping (and later killing) five soldiers in Karbala. Your effort at moral equivalence is thin.

Posted by: John at June 26, 2007 12:02 PM (NcsIb)

33 Rafar, And the US equivalent of Hamas is who exactly? I think the moral equivalence is pretty thin. As for a direct attack on the US, see Karbala.

Posted by: John at June 26, 2007 12:07 PM (NcsIb)

34 Sorry for the double post. The first one seemed to vanish for about 5 minutes then appear the moment I hit post on the shorter second draft.

Posted by: John at June 26, 2007 12:09 PM (NcsIb)

35 Oh, Lord, Rafar, give it up. You were making sense, up to a point, but you really stepped in it when you said that Persians and Iraqis were "natural allies." Um, you do know that Arabs and Persians don't like each other, yes? I mean, they really, really don't like each other. Think 12th-century England vs France. No, they aren't anything remotely resembling "natural allies." Your casual dismissal of all varieties of air offensive with a single wave of the hand betrays your own ignorance of the topic. First the examples presented represent a very wide variety of methods. Close air support isn't tactical bombming, which isn't "strategic" (AKA logistical) bombing. Mixing them up together in that manner is analagous to saying that a Colt M1911A1 is the same as a 88mm mortar, which is the same as a 105mm howitzer. After all, they all come out of a barrel, they all go "bang," right? They must be the same. Air war comes in a wide variety of flavors, and demonstrates a wide variety of results. No one type is foolproof, in that it produces guaranteed results, although some types seem to be more effective than others. There is a running gag in the Army: "B-52 bombs are very, very accurate. They always hit the ground..." On the other hand, the BUFFs can be quite accurate, depending on circumstances. One size doesn't fit all. Since that seems to be part of your personal diplomatic preferences, I'm surprised you managed to swallow such a crassly inaccurate generalization about air war. Your later comments make it clear that you've bought into the Iranian hype. If you recall, we very frequently saw a a laundry-list similar to yours before the Iraq invasion, and list failed to pan out as well. You also, BTW, seem to be reducing CY's intelligent & reasoned analysis to "bomb the buggers." But then, you do seem to have a poor grasp of what bombing is, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. It seems to me that your position is an excellent example of the old saying that "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." True, but that's only because the incompetent wait until the last resort as a matter of policy. You are so fixated on what might happen that you have paralyzed yourself into doing ... nothing. I'm sure the kleptocracy in Tehran would love seeing the West sit on its collective thumbs, just as the Brits did with regards to their captured sailors. CY, on the other hand, has presented a measured, reasoned response to the situation. I think it's a rather good plan, and I hope Washington has something along those lines in mind. But then, I also think we need a better source than the Sun before getting all fired up, as well...

Posted by: Casey Tompkins at June 26, 2007 12:31 PM (xdVg/)

36 "Your effort at moral equivalence is thin." I make no attempt at moral equivalence. I couldn't care less about morality in this matter. "Do you think those guys were diplomats? I don't." I don't know, and neither do you. What I do know is that the Kurdish authorities screamed to heaven about it. Do you think that this was because the Kurds are supporting Iranian insurgents? "The US captured Iranian insurgents actively promoting the killing of our soldiers in Iraq." You suppose. I have yet to see any solid evidence to support that asssertion. "In return the Iranians attempted a direct reprisal by infiltrating a US base and kidnapping (and later killing) five soldiers in Karbala." Again, you suppose, largely based on the reasoning, as far as I have seen, that since it was too difficult for Iraqi insurgents to carry out it must have been the Iranians. What is thin here is the evidence you present.

Posted by: rafar at June 26, 2007 01:26 PM (P0E2s)

37 "No, they aren't anything remotely resembling "natural allies." All Iraqis, no certainly not. The lot running the country, the ones in political parties which were sheltered in Iran for the Saddam years, the ones with militias that were openly trained in Iran for those years, SIIC, Dawa, Badr. Those guys are most definitely Iran's allies. Have you not been paying attention to your history? "Since that seems to be part of your personal diplomatic preferences, I'm surprised you managed to swallow such a crassly inaccurate generalization about air war." Well, try to suppress the Iranians with air strikes and we'll see what we get, shan't we. Dive in by all means. Just don't be surprised when it goes horribly wrong.

Posted by: Rafar at June 26, 2007 01:32 PM (P0E2s)

38 I would think if Iran had any helicopters across the border they would have been dispensed with rather quickly. The Iranian qud are our cia-green berets and navy seals and even Rambo (scary thought isn't it.) and like the old KGB, they have One qud for every number of soldiers, as well as their own SS units . They can operate solo and undetected and are very familiar with Iraqi soil ever since their highly effective and bloody counteroffensive against Sadam Hussein. (people forget the tens of thousands of iranians tied together as soviet/japanese style human assault waves. (Tied to prevent someone from backing off) We act as if they shouldn't be there. All these areas have, in addition to the high tech mines of today, also mines from before the U.S./British expedition came upon the scene. I hardly consider this an "alarming" development. I see an armistice coming soon, much like the Korean war. Patience is the better part of valor, Now I really hope we do not abandon the Kurds who are the equivalent of the Vietnam Montangyard (I hope I spelled that right). I believe we can spread stability outwards from there, by concentrationg our resources/assistance the same way Israel is attempting to stabilize the west bank and rekindle relations while Hamas is pigeonholed in Gaza. At least with the Kurds we have a loyal friend and have a better chance of success. Kudos to our forces establishing tribal treaties against Alqaeda in I raq. It is making a difference. Like any good cooking it takes time.

Posted by: SgtYork at June 26, 2007 03:29 PM (lLtUR)

39 Hey All, Here's the plan. Support the Iranian Divestiture Project, then heave a few grenades in the last functioning gas refinery. Then use the force projection of our two carrier groups in the Gulf to shut down any new gas stock imports. The Regime will tank in a matter of days. RBT

Posted by: rocketsbrain at June 26, 2007 03:33 PM (1vk+s)

40 Folks get so squishy when you discuss the nuke option, invoking the 'daisy' ad that did in Goldwater's hopes for the Presidency, and crying about all the toasted little children and women. Well, how many did we toast in our own city of Las Vegas? We set those things off around there all the time. For a long time. No, targeted, surgical nuclear strikes are a perfectly sound option.

Posted by: Bane at June 26, 2007 04:08 PM (emyIX)

41 A few corrections/comments, Rafar: You hit Natanz, which we do at will, repeating as necessary, sustaining 0-2% casualties (if the Israelis do it, 0-5% casualties) per strike; they hit the straights, Which they can do just about once, with limited effectiveness, suffering 50-75% casualties per strike (and it gets worse for them once they have done it and lose the advantage of surprise); which leads to destabilization of their own economy as their own crude goes through the Straits; which in theory angers other OPEC Straits-users and customers, leading to pressure to make it all stop - you may like to think all the pressure will be on the US; it ain't necessarily so; you blow up their refinery, they send a thousand SAMs into Iraq and blow up Congress, A little confusion here - you mean the US Congress? But to continue: we blow up or capture their refineries and wellheads, their economy and society grind to a halt: no POL, no modern warfare. Let them all come with swords if they like. Surely money for SAMs will be curtailed, and they will be wanted for home defense anyway; how do you blow up Congress with SAMs; blowing up Congress would result in nuclear annihilation of Iranian civilization, which I think has been accepted here to be an effective tactic - it wouldn't seem so brutal juxtaposed against pictures of a ruined Capitol (certainly not to Congresscritters); you bomb Tehran, Iraqi Shiites overrun a US army base. We already skipped "bombing Tehran," and all the stops would be yanked out anyway; define the "base" to be overrun - do you mean an outpost with six guys in three Humvees, or a real base? Barring a surprise attack, the latter is impossible (see Khe Sanh; see MOAB; see Sheriff ADS); with Iran in ruins, remember, the pressure, influence, money, etc. supporting the enemy in Iraq diminishes greatly; Also, as the naked power of the US is shown, resistance will diminish. I'm afraid the example of the Ottoman Empire does not illustrate that the Middle East cannot be ruled by a sufficient amount of force. NOBODY in Iraq thinks that AQ will save them from the US. What people may think is that AQ is more likely than the US to kill and maim them in the short term (or more so than the US is to save them), so should be appeased. Were this calculus to be overset, no AQ could buy breakfast in Iraq.

Posted by: nichevo at June 26, 2007 10:00 PM (Ak+g8)

42 "A few corrections/comments, Rafar:" You don't need to correct it, I already said that it was a made up and not necessarily accurate scenario. "how do you blow up Congress with SAMs;" Yes, that is a confusing sentence, sorry. I meant sent SAMs into Iraq and, as a separate matter, attacked congress with some sort of suicide attack. I note that none of these suggestions deals with the potential for worldwide depression due to oil shock, or with the predictable ire of the Russians and Chinese. I also note that your response encompasses the nuclear strike that I suggested was one of the two options and as such merely confirms my point.

Posted by: Rafar at June 27, 2007 02:27 AM (P0E2s)

43 One simple question. Why can't we just carpet bomb Iran? You know...beat them into submission. These guys are financing the suicide bombers over in Iraq. Get to the source. Kram www.FuzzySnake.com

Posted by: Kram at June 27, 2007 04:06 AM (i94/j)

44 All of the comments here are great, however, President Bush is really Jimmy Carter in wolves clothing. I am a 58 year old retired USAF CMSgt who is ready to go to IRAN/IRAQ with a rifle if necessary but Bush is a paper tiger. This Country will watch and do nothing to IRAN and eventually come home beaten and broke. Heck, here at home we can't even control our own government, the LIBS prevent us from defending our own soil from illegals comng in here. How does anyone ever think we would go against IRAN with all the weak kneed so-called representatives calling the shots. IRAN knows this too, they ain't stupid!!! IRAN will get away with anything they do in IRAQ. The only ones with the ????? to do anything is Israel and they are being held back by the good ole' USA too. This is such a frustration watching this all unfold

Posted by: Larry at June 27, 2007 11:25 AM (F26eZ)

45 Yeah, Purple Avenger, I want us to lose. Me, a guy with two family members in country. Me, a guy from a military family. Me, a veteran, I want us to lose. At least you've finally decided to drop the silly fiction that you're "not a liberal"...since that's exactly the demographic YOU targeted YOUR remark at, and in stating the above clearly identified with. You can say you don't want us to lose, but its pretty clear you're not cheering for a win either.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 27, 2007 07:24 PM (G2DEp)

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So Michael Yon entitles his latest post from the front lines of Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Baquba, which to date, has killed 51 members of al Qaeda and led to the capture of 20 more as of yesterday, June 21.

Source:Explosion in Baquba on June 12, 2007. Photo by Michael Yon.

Yon reports that the larger media organizations are finally showing up, but are having communications problems that make reporting on the battle difficult (I cleaned up the hanging HTML tag in Mike's post; I hope you don't mind):

Alexandra Zavis from Los Angeles Times is down in the heat of the battle bringing home information. Michael Gordon from New York Times is still slugging it out, and his portions are accurate in the co-authored story, "Heavy Fighting as US Troops Squeeze Insurgents in Iraqi City." (Long title.)

CNN has joined the fight. AP came but will stay only a few days. Joe Klein from TIME was here on the 21st and his story posted the same day and was accurate. We rode together in a Stryker. Like magic, JoeÂ’s story was out before I got back to base. Joe took a helicopter out and filed from elsewhere. IÂ’m having comms problems here which is greatly slowing the flow. My Thuraya satellite phone and RBGAN satellite dish are not working for hours each day. The AP reporter is having the same problems. The signal degradation is caused by a special sort of RF interference. Moving our antennas around wonÂ’t work. We simply get cut off for long periods.

If these communications problems sounds familiar, it should: Yon and other journalists have faced these issues for years:

Valuable stories about our soldiers and the battle are being lost and will never be filed because reporters, after a long day of being on the battlefield, cannot make a simple phone call, or file a story. Why be here? ItÂ’s pretty dangerous, and insurance is expensive. I had to skip a mission this morning because I cannot make communications, and am down to filing stories on the fly again without time for editing. There is no other way to keep the flow open, and if you are reading this, itÂ’s only after IÂ’ve wasted hours trying to upload it. Hours I could have been with our soldiers, telling about their days in one of the most important battles of this war.

Frankly, the military has had since 2003 to work on these issues, but setting up communications for reporters has always seemed to be an afterthought, if thought of at all. In a war where media access and coverage driving public opinion is as important to success as combat and humanitarian operations on the ground, there is simply no good excuse for this.

I suspect that a lot of the interference reporters are encountering with their comms are directly the result of ECM jamming to keep al Qaeda from communicating, but as U.S. military comms work, they should be able to dedicate one line or frequency for media reporting. Hopefully, the PAO will get these problems resolved, ASAP.

Otherwise, while Yon is very impressed with U.S. forces and the level of access he and other reporters have been afforded to cover the battle. He is far less impressed with local Iraqi military commanders, who have a tendency to act like state officials in Louisiana:

IÂ’ve seen them in meeting after meeting, over the past few days, finding ways to be underachievers. The Iraqi commanders have dozens of large trucks and have only to drive to our base to collect the supplies and distribute those supplies to the people displaced in the battle. Our troops are fully engaged in combat, yet the Iraqi leaders were not able to carry that load without LTC Johnson supplying the initiative. The Kurds would have had this fixed yesterday. The Iraqi commanders in Mosul would have fixed this. The local Iraqi command climate is disappointing by comparison.

As for his impressions of how our soldiers are performing in Baquba, I'll send you over to Mike's site to read the rest.

As noted above by Yon above, reporters are finally flooding into Baquba to cover Operation Arrowhead Ripper, but communications problems seem to be limiting the information getting out.

One story that did get out, from Reuters reporter Alister Bull, highlights the depravity of the enemy we are fighting:

Bednarek said U.S. forces were making some grisly discoveries as they scoured Baquba. He said residents led soldiers to a house in the western part of the city that appeared to have been used to hold, torment and kill hostages. Soldiers destroyed it.

"When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal," Bednarek said.

That soldiers uncovered an al Qaeda torture house is unsurprising; soldiers in another part of Operation Phantom Thunder, in a sub-operation called Operation Commando Eagle, captured an al Qaeda torture manual on CD when they captured several terrorists yesterday. We've seen these before.

Like yesterdays' account from Joe Klein of TIME, Bull reports that members of the insurgent 1920s Revolutionary Brigades are helping U.S. forces route al Qaeda.

Source:Soldiers assigned to the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, move down a neighborhood street during Operation Arrowhead Ripper, June 19, 2007, in Baqouba, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Armando Monroig.

This sounds familiar.

MNC-I release an account this morning that may provide anecdotal evidence that al Qaeda in Baquba was truly surprised by the swiftness and effectiveness of how quickly American forces were able to cordon off Baquba and trap them inside, as al Qaeda fighters desperately attempted to use an ambulance to escape:

Coalition Forces intercepted an ambulance carrying seven suspected al-Qaida operatives attempting to circumvent security elements operating in Baqouba, June 19.

Local doctors called the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center and reported five children injured near Khatoon, a neighborhood in southwest Baqouba, Iraq. The PJCC dispatched an ambulance to that location.

Later, the ambulance was seen heading north on a road northwest of New Baqouba when it bypassed the road that led to the hospital.

The ambulance was stopped by alert Soldiers from 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Lewis, Wash., who are conducting missions in the area as part of Operation Arrowhead Ripper.

Soldiers checked the ambulance and found a driver and six men, who appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, two of which were injured. There were no children in the ambulance.

CF provided medical treatment to the wounded men and detained all seven.

If this sounds familiar, Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists have frequently used ambulances and even media vehicles to transport men and munitions in their ever-present conflict with Israeli forces.

Another MNC-I release states that U.S. attack helicopters have killed at least 13 al Qaeda terrorists and leveled their compound, and found a Baquba school rigged with explosives:

In a separate engagement, CF Soldiers discovered an empty school complex rigged with explosives in Baqouba, the capital city of Diyala province, Thursday, during Operation Arrowhead Ripper.

Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment discovered the booby-trapped school complex. An investigation of the area determined the school and surrounding buildings had been abandoned.

CF had to destroy the school due to risk to the community. CF were unable to disable the explosives because of instability. Ground forces effectively coordinated a precisions guided munitions strike and successfully destroyed the school-borne IED.

The release concludes:

As Arrowhead Ripper continued through June 21, at least 51 al-Qaida operatives have been killed, with 20 al-Qaida operatives detained, seven weapons caches discovered, 21 improvised explosive devices destroyed and nine booby-trapped structures destroyed.

Hopefully we'll be able to update this developing story as more media are able to file reports.

Update: A.J. Strata has his own roundup posted here.

Update: A short email from Mike Yon:

They are in trouble here, Bob. Operation Arrowhead Ripper is going very well. This is a problem for Al Qaeda here.

Based on what Yon has said both in his emails to me and Glenn, and probably others, and what he has said in his posts from Baquba stating his near unfettered access to the Operation Arrowhead Ripper tactical operations center (TOC) for U.S. and Iraqi forces, he is obviously privy to information that shows al Qaeda in Baquba has every appearance of having been successfully surrounded and cut-off.

Yon noted in his latest post that he and other journalists cannot send out reports via cell phone or satellite, indicating that the military is probably jamming non-military electronic transmissions in the area (I'm sure al Qaeda already knows that their phones don't work, or I wouldn't post it).

This means that al Qaeda, which typically carries cell and/or sat phones for communications, is hampered from cummunicating position-to-position within Baquba, and is probably cut off to external cells in surrounding towns and villages as well. It also probably means that their long-standing tactic of using cell phones to rig command-detonated IEDS has been either eliminated, or at least severely hampered.

It seems that U.S. forces may have learned from Fallujah and other operations where the weaknesses in their earlier cordon operations have been, and have closed those gaps in Baquba.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:06 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1563 words, total size 12 kb.

I wonder how much it pained AP's Kim Gamel to write this:

A U.S. Marine commander in Anbar province predicted that al-Qaida fighters will be expelled from Fallujah by August as the military moves to cut insurgent supply and reinforcement lines into Baghdad and surrounding areas.

Brig. Gen. John Allen, the deputy commander for American forces west of Baghdad, said al-Qaida in Iraq has largely been pushed out of population centers in much of the Anbar province.

He cited the success in turning Sunni tribes against the organization and an influx of American troops to chase al-Qaida out of Iraqi and regions around the capital.

"The vast majority of them have been pushed out of the population centers," Allen said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "The surge has given us the troops we needed to really clear those areas, so we cleared them and we stayed."

He said U.S. and Iraqi troops were trying to repeat recent success in calming Ramadi, the provincial capital, using the same neighborhood-by-neighborhood tactics in Fallujah -- a Sunni insurgent bastion that was first cleared by a massive American assault in 2004.

Allen also stated Karmah would be clear of al Qaeda by July.

Over at TIME, Joe Klein helicoptered his way into Baquba, and unleashed a surprisingly objective post showing that Sunni Awakening movement that has largely led al Qaeda to flee their one time stronghold in al Anbar province has spread to Diyala province as well, where American forces were getting help from Sunni insurgents:

A lieutenant colonel named Bruce Antonia told Odierno about preparing to attack the Buhritz neighborhood a few nights earlier when he was approached by local Sunni inusurgents—members, they said, of the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades—who were streaming out of the neighborhood. "They said they'd been fighting al-Qaeda but had run out of ammunition and asked us to supply them. We told them, 'Show us where AQ is and we'll fight them.'" The insurgents did and the neighborhood was cleared.

A second lieutenant colonel named Avanulis Smiley picked up the story from there, "Sir, they've also showed us seven buried IED sites. They gave us specific information—description of the houses, gate color, tree trunks."

After the briefing I asked Colonel Antonia if he'd asked the Sunnis why they had turned against al-Qaeda. "They said it was religious stuff," he said. "AQI demanded that the women wear abayas, no smoking and they preached an extreme version of Islam in the mosque. They'd also spent the winter without food and fuel because of the violence al-Qaeda was causing. One guy said to me, 'We fought against you because you invaded our country and you're infidels. But you treat us with more dignity than al-Qaeda,' and he said they'd continue to work with us. I've been involved in many operations here and this is a first—usually everybody's shooting at us. This is the first time we've had any of them on our side." (In web postings, the 1920 Revolutionary Brigade has denied it is cooperating with the Americans.)

Sadly enough, the majority of the media has chosen to focus on the tragic deaths of 14 American troops in combat, instead of what the operations these men were a part of are attempting to accomplish. As is so often the case, Allahpundit puts the media's choice in stark relief.

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This just in via email from Blackfive:

With combat operations in Iraq as kinetic as they've ever been, the Marines could use your support. No links, just please use the info below at your discretion.

At Blackfive, we have been trying to improve our relationship with the Public Affairs Officers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, the Marines have begun a really intense exchange of ideas with us. One Marine Combat Commander embraced our offer of support.

One of the requests that they had of us was to attempt to get 6,000 positive and supportive emails - one for each Marine, Sailor and Soldier in the Marine Regimental Combat Team - 6. Grim, our resident thinker and former Marine at Blackfive, has taken responsibility for this project.

From Grim's interview with Marine Colonel Simcock, Commander of RCT-6:
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/06/roundtable_with.html

COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I'll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about -- and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 -- we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we're taking over here are very, very important to America. We're fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.
If anyone -- you know, just sit down, jot us -- throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It's broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we're a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn't know what's going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn't behind us and doesn't see the importance of what's going on. So that's something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we're doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.

The Marines have set up a special email address to send a supportive message to the Marines is: RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil . The emails are being scanned by the PAO before being printed and distributed to individual Marines.

And, guess what?, the RCT-6 has a blog at http://fightin6thmarines.vox.com/

AFTER A FEW DAYS, WE HAVE ONLY GOTTEN THE MARINES ABOUT 2,000 EMAILS. WE COULD USE SOME HELP IN GETTING THE WORD OUT.

Thanks!

Best,

Matt

You're waiting for what, exactly?

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Just eight days ago, in advance of the now-engaged campaign in Baquba, Italian-based "news" site Uruknet re-posted in full an article by The Peoples Voice, a site dedicated, according to the masthead, to "Environmental, political, and social justice issues."

The People's Voice post attempts to re-raise the specter of the "illegal" use of Mark 77 firebombs and white phosphorus ordnance that they and other questionable media outlets claimed were used against civilians in the 2004 assault on Fallujah and in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. The article features three graphic pictures of victims that the site intones were killed with firebombs and white phosphorus.

There's a funny thing about at least two of those three pictures, however.

The first image they use in line with comments about the use of Mark 77 firebombs in 2003 was actually taken in Fallujah in 2004, following the American assault on that city, and was featured in the Italian-made documentary Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre that I roundly debunked in November of 2005.

As I stated at the time about this photo:

Body 3. 9:38 Extremely decomposed remains, cause of death undetermined. No apparent burn marks on the body or clothes.

Body 3 referred to the order of appearance of the remains, and 9:38 corresponds to when the photo was shown in the documentary. Interestingly enough, while the People's Voice leave the reader to infer that this body was the victim of a firebomb, the Italian documentary claimed that this body had been killed by white phosphorus. Details, details...

While the photo is of extremely low quality (and therefore easy to spin any way you desire), it is clear the corpse is clothed. Something that burns as hot as napalm or firebomb would likely have burned the clothing completely away, if not most or all of the body as well.

The fact of the matter is that we don't know what killed this suspected insurgent in Fallujah, and the attempt by the RAI documentary to claim he/she was a victim of white phosphorus is equally irresponsible as the People's Voice attempt to link the corpse to a a strike by a Mark 77 at any point in the war, much less a period in time that doesn't coincide with the claims made in the article's text.

The next body shown in the People's Voice article was also lifted from the RAI documentary, and led the reader to believe this body was the dead suspected insurgent was killed by white phosphorus.
Really?

As I noted when I first saw this picture in the RAI documentary:

Body 18. 19:40 Military-aged male, moderately decomposed. No sign of burns on face or clothes.

Once again, (like every single photo in the RAI documentary) there is no physical evidence on this corpse consistent with white phosphorous wounds.

Chris Milroy, professor of forensic pathology at the University of Sheffield (England), after seeing these bodies in the RAI documentary, said:

..."nothing indicates to me that the bodies have been burnt". They had turned black and lost their skin "through decomposition".

It might also be worth noting that the author of the Guardian article cited above made false claims regarding the use of thermobaric weapons in Fallujah (to the best of my knowledge, precisely one thermobaric weapon has been dropped in wartime, and that was used against a cave in Afghanistan).

The third body shown in the People's Voice article, point or origin unknown, also shows a badly decomposed body, cause of death unknown and partially skeletal, as some sort of incendiary weapons victim as well, without any pathological proof presented.

As for the actual charges made in the People's Voice article...

Well, to call them "highly selective" in nature would be fair, as would be calling them "inconsistent" with the military use of white phosphorus even on personnel, "ignorant" as to its actual effects of such weapons on the human body (it would burns holes in a person that did not brush or shake it off; it does not engulf them), and "misleading" overall.

In other words, the entire article is unreliable, but as People's Voice is concerned with environmental issues, we can at least commend them for recycling the dead.

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MNF-I released comments this morning regarding the opening day of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, targeting al Qaeda elements in Baquba, capitol of Iraq's Diyala Province.

The 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division launched the offensive with a quick-strike night air assault early Tuesday morning.

"The end state is to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general of operations for the 25th Infantry Division. "That is the number one, bottom-line, up-front, in-your-face task and purpose."

About 10,000 Soldiers, with a full complement of attack helicopters, close-air support, Strykers and Bradley fighting vehicles, are taking part in Arrowhead Ripper, which is still in its opening stages. Elements of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division; the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division and the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade are also participating in the operation.

The MNF-I release claims 22 terrorists killed; VOA News now puts the count at 30, while Earthtimes says 13 other suspect members of al Qaeda were captured, along with weapons caches and roadside bombs.

Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army also engaged al Qaeda targets in Baquba, killing four suspected terrorists and capturing two more.

One U.S. soldier has been killed and two have been injured thus far in the operation.

I'd remind readers that this operation, just underway, will no doubt result in an attempt by al Qaeda propagandists and journalists with questionable sources to allege war crimes, as similar debunked charges were brought up during and after the battle of Fallujah.

Some ersatz media sites sympathetic to jihadists are still running these already debunked claims, and will no doubt attempt to recycle these claims for Operation Arrowhead Ripper (Gee, do the pictures of bodies linked here look familiar to those in the UrukNet photos? They've mysteriously transformed from the bodies of innocent victims of white phosphorus "poison gas" to being victims of napalm or Mark 77 firebombs, even though none were used in Fallujah).

As a side note, white phosphorus has already been used in Baquba...as a screening agent for American forces to move behind and through to avoid enemy fire, which is one of its primary battlefield uses.

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How can they call it a "graduation" when it is obvious that not a single student has taken the final exam?

I demand accountability.

Heh. In the comments at Hot Air, "Those who can, bomb. Those who can't, make videos. "

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Up to 10,000 U.S. Troops have mounted an air and ground assault in Baquba:

Up to 10,000 U.S. soldiers backed by armored vehicles and helicopter gunships fought their way into an al Qaeda haven in Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 22 extremist fighters, the military said.

Operation Arrowhead Ripper, involving Strykers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, was aimed at dismantling al Qaeda operations around Baquba, a hotbed of unrest north of Baghdad, a military statement said.

Baquba is the capital of Diyala province, a mixed region located north and east of Baghdad and bordering Iran. Military officials believe some al Qaeda in Iraq elements have recently migrated from Baghdad and Anbar province to Diyala.

The 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division kicked off the operation "with a quick-strike nighttime air assault earlier today," the military said Tuesday.

Ground troops joined the attack helicopters in engaging the militants, 22 of whom were killed by daylight, the military said.

Michael Yon is on the ground with U.S. forces, and writes via email:

We just attacked Baqubah (or let's say it's just begun) and I am here. Very, very busy. US forces appear to be meeting objectives so far. There is fighting and casualties on both sides, but mostly I am seeing order so far.

He posts about the opening stages of the operation in Diyala on his latest dispatch:

The doctor has made a decision: Al Qaeda must be excised. That means a large scale attack, and what appears to be the most widespread combat operations since the end of the ground war are now unfolding. A small part of that larger battle will be the Battle for Baquba. For those involved, it will be a very large battle, but in context, it will be only one of numerous similar battles now unfolding. Just as this sentence was written, we began dropping bombs south of Baghdad and our troops are in contact.

Northeast of Baghdad, innocent civilians are being asked to leave Baquba. More than 1,000 AQI fighters are there, with perhaps another thousand adjuncts. Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004. They are ready for us. Giant bombs are buried in the roads. Snipers—real snipers—have chiseled holes in walls so that they can shoot not from roofs or windows, but from deep inside buildings, where we cannot see the flash or hear the shots. They will shoot for our faces and necks. Car bombs are already assembled. Suicide vests are prepared.

The enemy will try to herd us into their traps, and likely many of us will be killed before it ends. Already, they have been blowing up bridges, apparently to restrict our movements. Entire buildings are rigged with explosives. They have rockets, mortars, and bombs hidden in places they know we are likely to cross, or places we might seek cover. They will use human shields and force people to drive bombs at us. They will use cameras and make it look like we are ravaging the city and that they are defeating us. By the time you read this, we will be inside Baquba, and we will be killing them. No secrets are spilling here.

Read that again, "Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004."

The "Mahogany Ridge" media is tied up in the latest suicide bombing in Baghdad (simply look at the title, lede, and focus of the CNN article cited above as an example), and even those who chose to feature the Baquba assault clearly don't understand the magnitude of the just-joined battle.

Once reality slowly dawns on the media that they are misunderestimating the scope and scale of the assault, steel yourself for a rush of inaccuracies as they seek to get something, anything published, much of it based upon rumor, some of it based upon outright propaganda and lies.

We saw the same during and after Fallujah, when the U.S. military was accused of using napalm on civilians. We don't even have napalm.

The ignorati claimed that white phosphorus was a "chemical weapon," or a "poison gas" and ascribed horrible wounds to it. These claims turned out to be completely untrue.

There may also once again be claims that using .50-caliber machine guns and the cannons of Bradley IFVs and helicopter gunships against terrorist personnel somehow violates the Geneva Conventions. It doesn't.

We'll be hearing and seeing much more from Diyala Province, Baquba proper, and other areas surrounding Baghdad as full-scale surge operations seek to envelop and destroy al Qaeda.

Read smart.

Update: Over at Captains Quarters Ed Morrissey adds some good analysis, and Glenn Reynolds features a longer email from Yon.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:15 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Considering they supplied arms, training and men against us in wars in Korea and Vietnam in the latter half of the last century, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised at reports that China is arming our enemies today:

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.

U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports.

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.

According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.

The weapons were described as "late-model" arms that have not been seen in the field before and were not left over from Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq.

U.S. Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months.

As bad as it is, that China is working with Iran to supply weapons to our enemies isn't the worst part of the story.

This is.

The Bush administration has been trying to hide or downplay the intelligence reports to protect its pro-business policies toward China, and to continue to claim that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials have openly criticized Iran for the arms transfers but so far there has been no mention that China is a main supplier.

I want to be very careful and not jump to conclusions here, but it seems that Gertz is making the claim that the Bush administration is trying to cover-up the Chinese sale and transfer of weapons used to target American and allied soldiers at the behest of American companies doing business with the Chinese.

If this claim can be substantiated...

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Via Fox News

President Mahmoud Abbas will dissolve the Palestinian Authority's government Thursday after fighting between rival parties Hamas and Fatah consumed the Gaza Strip and was expected to call for a state of emergency, sources close to Abbas confirmed to FOX News.

Hamas fighters took control from two of the rival Fatah movement's most important security command centers in the Gaza Strip, and witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style.

Now he's expected to call a state of emergency?

This is kind of like jotting a note to requisition more lifejackets after you've hit the iceberg and the ship's already gone down.

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Comfortable among his own kind, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has dropped all pretenses of the insincere "...but we support the troops" mantra utterly by the far left, the Politico reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

This is but the latest example of how Reid, under pressure from liberal activists to do more to stop the war, is going on the attack against President Bush and his military leaders in anticipation of a September showdown to end U.S. involvement in Iraq, according to Democratic senators and aides.

The report of Reid's attacks on key military commanders comes one day after Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Bush claiming that the "surge" in Iraq has failed, just weeks after claiming they would wait until September to evaluate the success of the surge, and despite widespread and growing Sunni uprisings against al Qaeda in al Anbar and Diyala provinces, in Baghdad's Sunni-dominated Amiriyah district, and elsewhere.

According to U.S. Code, Title 18 > Part I > Chapter 115 > § 2387 Activities affecting armed forces generally:

(a) Whoever, with intent to interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States:

(1) advises, counsels, urges, or in any manner causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States; or
(2) distributes or attempts to distribute any written or printed matter which advises, counsels, or urges insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term “military or naval forces of the United States” includes the Army of the United States, the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve of the United States; and, when any merchant vessel is commissioned in the Navy or is in the service of the Army or the Navy, includes the master, officers, and crew of such vessel.

Marine General Peter Pace is still the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an active duty officer and leader in the United States military. U.S. Army General David Petraeus is the Commanding General of Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), in command of all U.S Army, Marine, Navy and Air Force military units in Iraq. Petraeus was confirmed to that position confirmed to that position by the Senate in an 81-0 vote less than five months ago on January 26, 2007.

Senator Harry Reid, please explain to us how your apparent utterances calling serving generals "incompetent" while they are engaged in command duties as general officers of the United States during wartime does not amount to interfering with, impairing, or attempting to influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States.

You'll note, Senator Reid, that Chapter 15 of U.S. Code covers "Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities," and I find it very hard for you to argue—though you and your supporters certainly will—that words uttered against the competence of active duty commanding generals during wartime does not amount to an attempt to "interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States." Your offense, coming from your position of United States Senate Majority Leader, is particularly egregious when it is considered that these comments are directed to a group of opinionmakers that claim to hold such sway over Democrat Party politics.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:37 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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I wrote on June 5th in a post called The Sliding War that "...the factions in Gaza are almost in, sliding into, on the brink of, and verging on being in a civil war, but they aren't there quite yet... and have been for over a year."

Now, it appears that the Gaza Civil War may be all but over, even before the media could recognize it.

From today's Jerusalem Post:

Hamas fighters overran Fatah-allied Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday, a key target in their battle to control the entire Gaza Strip, witnesses and a security agency official said.

One witness, Jihad Abu Ayad, said Hamas gunmen were bringing Preventive Security men out of the building and executing them in the street.

The headquarters was the last Fatah stronghold in Gaza City, and Fatah appears to be demoralized and all but collapsing.

If Hamas—an Iranian-supported terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel—wrests complete control of Gaza, it is indeed an ominous development.

A member of the Syrian Parliment, Mohammad al Habash, has already told al Jazeera that Syria is preparing for a summer war against Israel, and Hezbollah's deputy secretary Sheikh Naim Kassem has already stated that Hezbollah—rearmed by Iran and Syria after last year's battle with Israel in Lebanon—is also preparing for another summer "adventure" with Israel as well.

A map of the region shows why these claims are of such concern.

If the ominous rumblings by Syria and Hezbollah of a summer campaign against Israel are credible, then most if not all of northern Israel could be a potential battleground. If Hamas can consolidate power in Gaza, then they have the possibility of opening a weaker, but still lethal second front in the event of a summer war, diverting or dividing Israeli ground forces.

I strongly doubt that even a combined Syrian, Hamas, and Hezbollah offensive would have any strong chance of success, and hope that whatever their endgame strategy is, they realize that as well.

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Teflon Don of Acute Politics is back in the world:

After another long stretch in the plane, we landed in Dallas. The people in Dallas are great- my first glimpse of America included a fire truck spraying an arc of water over the plane to welcome us home. Inside, the terminal was almost bare, but there was a still a small crowd that went to the airport at 6am to greet us. A quick run through immigrations and customs put us back in the world- a place where we are much less soldiers, and much more kids trying to make our cell phones work.

My group flew standby, trying to get home just a few hours quicker. Everywhere we went, we had a few people come up and thank us. In my experience, most of those that did had a relative or friend in the military. Most people payed no more attention to us than to anyone anyone else. No one was rude.

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His defense attorney claims he has "a severe mental illness."

The man accused of striking nine people when he drove a vehicle on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last year has apologized in a letter sent to the court.

In the letter dated May 20 and sent to Orange County Superior Court, Mohammed Taheri-azar said he is "very sorry for the crimes which I committed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on March 3, 2006. I sincerely regret what I did on that day. Please release me from state custody so that I may pursue my goal of living a productive life in California."

Taheri-azar has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of felonious assault.

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Hamas is threatening to overrun Fatah positions in Gaza, one day after attacking the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and killing the top Fatah official in northern Gaza, Jamal al-Jediyan.

According to Global Security's handy dandy Civil War Checklist, there are five critieria for a civil war:

civil war: A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces, and engage in major military operations.

Does each faction control territory? Check.

Does Gaza have a functioning government? Check.

Do Fatah and Hamas enjoy some foreign recognition? Check.

Do they have identifiable armed forces? Check.

Do they engage in major military operations Check, and with two attacks directed against Haniya in two days and the new threat issued by Hamas against Fatah, the violence is getting more pronounced each day.

At some point, Rueters, AFP, the Assocaited Press, and other news organizations should begin identifying this clear civil war for what it is.

That day, however, is not today.

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If so, I think this guy is shooting for MVP:

Gov. Huckabee, who wants to be President, seems to have no problem with the gulag known as Gitmo. In fact, he says that prisoners would rather be in Gitmo then in the prisons right here in the USA...

[snip]

If Gitmo is better then state prisons in the USA, then we need to shut down every prison in the United States. Gitmo is a gulag, plain and simple. People there are being tortured, and some are dying. There are constant hunger strikes, and no international human rights groups are allowed to monitor the situation down there.

I covered this ground almost two years ago.

There are indeed prisons in America far worse than Guantanamo Bay, and to label the detention facility there a "gulag" is an abject display of ignorance, showing just how little the excitable author knows about real Soviet gulags, where millions of prisoners were worked, starved, and tortured to death.

Four prisoners have commited suicide at Guantanamo, since 2002, less than one a year, while 400 prisoners in American prisons commit suicide each year.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:54 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment
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