By Bill Roggio

Baghdad and the Belts. Red bordered units identified as active in offensive operations. Click map to view.

A status update on the operations in the Baghdad Belts and beyond

Operation Phantom Thunder, the name of the overarching operation to secure the Baghdad Belts, is now in its fifth day. As noted yesterday, Phantom Thunder is a corps-level operation, with multiple U.S. and Iraqi divisions engaged on multiple fronts. Iraqi Security Forces and Multinational Forces Iraq are engaged in intense fights in four main theaters: Baghdad proper, and the belts regions consisting of Diyala and southern Salahadin provinces to the north, northern Babil province to the south, and eastern Anbar province to the west of Baghdad. The fighting has been the most intense in the city of Baqubah, the provincial capital of Diyala.

The concurrent operations in each theater have been named in most cases. Operation Arrowhead Ripper, managed by Multinational Division North is underway in Baqubah and greater Diyala province. Multinational Division Central is running two operations: Operation Marne Torch southwest of Baghdad and Operation Commando Eagle to the southeast. The current operation in eastern Anbar, managed by Multinational Forces West has not yet been named. Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (otherwise known as the Baghdad Security Plan), which officially kicked off in mid-February, is managed by Multinational Division Baghdad and the Iraqi Baghdad Operational Command.

Operation Arrowhead Ripper

The large portion of the media attention has focused on the battle in Baqubah, as this is where the brunt of the heavy fighting is occurring. Baqubah is the provincial capital of Diyala as well as al Qaeda's proclaimed capital of its rump Islamic State of Iraq. Hundreds, and upwards of 1,000 al Qaeda fighters are believed to be holed up in the city in prepared fighting positions. The city has been mined with IEDs and booby-trapped homes, and seeded with snipers.

Michael Gordon reported U.S. troops moving into western Baqubah, where they found well-prepared medical aid stations and field hospitals. "The hospital, uncovered by troops from the Fifth Battalion, 20th Infantry, was equipped with oxygen tanks, defibrillators, generators and surgical equipment, as well as pieces of insurgent propaganda," noted Mr. Gordon. Baqubah and greater Diyala province is al Qaeda country.

"At least 41 insurgents have been killed, five weapons caches have been discovered, 25 improvised explosive devices have been destroyed and five booby-trapped houses have been discovered and destroyed," Multinational Forces Iraq reported last evening.

The 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division (3/2) appears to be shouldering the brunt of the combat. The soldiers from the 3/2 "killed 24-36 enemy fighters and detained nine," according to Mike Gilbert of the News Tribune. "They found and destroyed 16 other roadside bombs, four houses that had been rigged to explode, and two car bombs. They found two safe houses, destroyed what he described as a mobile weapons cache, and captured two other weapons caches, including 'a significant IED cache.'"

Both Michael Gordon and Michael Yon, who are embedded in Baqubah, reported U.S. and Iraqi troops are receiving valuable intelligence from the residents of Baqubah. "A positive indicator on the 19th and the 20th is that most local people apparently are happy that al Qaeda is being trapped and killed," Michael Yon wrote. "Civilians are pointing out IEDs and enemy fighters, so that’s not working so well for al Qaeda."

While the reporting from the regions outside Baqubah is sparse, there are indications engagements are also ongoing in the Diyala River valley.

Operations Marne Torch and Commando Eagle

Multinational Division Central, the newly created command to deal with the southern Baghdad Belts, has two concurrent major operations ongoing in its area of operations. Marne Torch is focusing on the city and surrounding regions of Arab Jabour, southeast of Baghdad. Commando Eagle is focusing on the Mahmudiyah region southwest of Baghdad.

"To date, Marne Torch and Iraqi army units have detained more than five dozen suspected extremists and destroyed more than 17 boats on the Tigris River that are responsible for transporting accelerants into Baghdad," Multinational Forces Iraq reported in a press release. "U.S. forces killed five insurgents, discovered and destroyed 12 improvised explosive devices, and detained 13 wanted individuals."

Operation Commando Eagle began on June 21, and was described as a "mix of helicopter-borne air assaults and Humvee-mounted movements, included Soldiers from several battalions of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) out of Fort Drum, N.Y., and the 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division."

The operation has yielded 29 suspected insurgents and numerous weapons caches, including one containing "75 CDs of propaganda and terror techniques instructing methods to commit kidnappings and to shoot down coalition helicopters."

The Mahmudiyah region contains the notorious "Triangle of Death," an area where al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents have established bases of operations to attack Baghdad and launch attacks on the Shia areas to the south. Three U.S. soldiers were captured in the region in mid-May, and two of the soldiers are still missing.

Operation ??? in eastern Anbar

Multinational Forces West has yet to release the name of the ongoing operations in eastern Anbar province. But the scope of the operation in eastern Anbar is now clearer. In an Associated Press interview with Brigadier General John Allen, the deputy commander of Multinational Forces West, the hot spots in the province were identified.

Brig. Gen. Allen noted there are three main focal points: Fallujah, Karma, and the Thar Thar region. The Fallujah piece includes moving into each of the 11 neighborhoods of the city and "establishing very quickly neighborhood watch organizations and a police precinct headquarters." [See The Fourth Rail's interview with Colonel Richard Simcock, the commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team - 6 for more details on the operation to clear Fallujah.]

The operation to secure the Fallujah neighborhoods is called Alljah. "The operation is similar to what another unit did in the city of Ramadi,” said Maj. George S. Benson, executive officer of 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines “We’re capitalizing on the success of Ramadi and using many of the same techniques.”

Fallujah is expected to be fully secured by August. U.S. forces expect to clear Karma, the poisonous al Qaeda haven northeast of Fallujah, and the Thar Thar region by July. "We're going to clear Karma here very shortly," Brig Gen Allen told the Associated Press, as he described the town as a "way station" to and from Baghdad. "We're going to start churning up the ground north on the grounds of Thar Thar ... a spot where we haven't had forces before."

Captain Eric Coulson, the commanding officer of an Army Engineer company in the Fallujah Ramadi corridor and author of Badgers Forward described the situation in eastern Anbar in an interview today. "Al Karma continues to be the most challenging area in Multinational Forces West's area of operations, followed by Zaidon. Karma is the one place we can be guaranteed to find IEDs every night."

Captain Coulson also discussed the improved security situation in Fallujah and the Habbaniyah and Amiriyah regions. "Fallujah gets better by the day," he noted. "Most of the area west of the river seems to be stable. There are lots of tribes and Iraqi Police providing local security in the Habbaniyah and Amiriayh/Ferris areas. The truth is it is very quiet."

Battling the Mahdi Army; raiding al Qaeda

As the major offensive is ongoing in the belts, the pressure is being kept up on Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army as well as al Qaeda's network throughout Iraq.

On June 20 Iraqi Special Forces raided Sadr City and captured a “key insurgent leader” along with two associates. “This individual is allegedly responsible for coordinating and conducting kidnappings, death squad killings and improvised explosive device attacks against innocent civilians and Iraqi and Coalition Forces,” reported Multinational Forces Iraq. “The primary suspect is allegedly responsible for supplying vehicles, identification materials, and uniforms to support insurgent activities such as the kidnappings and extra-judicial killing of Iraqi citizens. He is also alleged to have received new technologies to upgrade improvised explosive devices that would be used to target Iraqi and Coalition Forces.”

This comes as General David Petraeus announced that an “Iran-backed” secret cell of Mahdi Army was behind the kidnapping of five British civilians in Baghdad last May. “We think that it is the same network that killed our soldiers in Karbala in an operation back in January,” General Petraeus told The Times. “We killed the head of that network less than a week before the operation that detained those British civilians. It was already planned and carried out by his followers. It is a secret cell of Jaish al-Mahdi [al-Mahdi Army] not all of which are under control of Moqtada al-Sadr.” General Petraeus is referring to the Iranian backed Qazali Network, which the U.S. has been actively working to dismantle.

The operations against al Qaeda’s nationwide network also continue. Raids on Wednesday and Thursday in Mosul, Karma, Fallujah, and “north of Baghdad” netted 11 al Qaeda. Coalition forces have positively identified an al Qaeda leader from the Karma region who was killed on June 17. “Hussayn Awath Hussayn Hawawi, also known as Abu Thabbit, was a Libyan foreign fighter with connections to the North African foreign fighter network and ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq … Intelligence reports indicate he moved at least 30 North African fighters into Iraq” after escaping during a prison break in Mosul in March. “Hawawi is also believed to be involved in suicide bombing operations, and his foreign fighters allegedly conducted a number of attacks on Coalition Forces in Anbar province in late May.”

The concurrent operations in the Baghdad Belts, combined with the effort to secure Baghdad and the Special Forces raids on al Qaeda’s network will place a great strain on the terror group if the momentum is carried through the summer. Iraqi and Coalition fForces are striking hard in the heart of al Qaeda and Sunni insurgent havens in Diyala, Babil, and Anbar while squeezing the terror groups in the capital and conducting intelligence driven raids to keep the enemy off balance.

Al Qaeda can chose to stand and fight, and may do so in some places. But will eventually attempt to flee the hot zones in central Iraq for safer grounds. This will push them further from Iraq’s center of gravity, while placing them at risk while attempting to reestablish their networks. Northwestern Iraq – Niwena, Salahadin, and Kirkuk - will be a likely destination, however some of the most experienced Iraqi Army units are operating in the region. Some of them are taking up blocking positions to prevent the infiltration of terrorists attempting to escape Operation Phantom Fury.  Thursday, June 21, 2007 

http://billroggio.com

*

IRAN'S FAILED AUSSIE HOSTAGE ATTEMPT

By Charles Johnson

Apparently, when Iran captured those British sailors it wasn’t their first attempt; they went for an Australian Navy boarding team first: Iran ‘unable to take Australians’.

Iranian naval forces in the Gulf tried to capture an Australian Navy boarding team but were vigorously repelled, the BBC has learned.

The incident took place before Iran successfully seized 15 British sailors and Marines in March.

The lessons from the earlier attempt do not appear to have been applied in time by British maritime patrols.

The 15 Britons were searching a cargo boat in the Gulf when they were captured over a boundary dispute. When Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured the British sailors and Royal Marines in March, it was not exactly their first attempt.

It turns out that Iranian forces made an earlier concerted attempt to seize a boarding party from the Royal Australian Navy.

The Australians, though, to quote one military source, “were having none of it”.

The BBC has been told the Australians re-boarded the vessel they had just searched, aimed their machine guns at the approaching Iranians and warned them to back off, using what was said to be “highly colourful language”.

(Hat tip: LGF readers.)  Thursday, June 21, 2007 

PARTY TIME IN THE WEST BANK

By Charles Johnson

I can only hope that something isn’t being reported correctly here. Ehud Olmert is about to give the Fatah/PLO terror gang $400 million?

Israel is expected to release withheld tax funds to the Palestinian Authority just in time for a four-way Middle East summit in Sharm el-Sheikh next Monday. The issue will be discussed and decided on during the weekly Knesset meeting on Sunday.

Israel is currently in control of about $400 million in Palestinian taxes, which have not been transferred to the PA as of yet due to Hamas’ rise to power.

However, following the establishment of a new emergency government headed by Salam Fayyad, the United States and Europe have resumed financial aid to the Palestinians, prompting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to allow the flow of funds into the Authority.  Thursday, June 21, 2007 

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

UNDER PRESSURE, EGYPT OFFERS PEACE CONFERENCE

By Ed Morrissey

Egypt has decided to grasp an opportunity to play peacemaker in the wake of the Hamas coup in Gaza. Under pressure from the US, it wants to demonstrate its moderate bona fides and attempt to use this moment as an opportunity to bolster the more moderate and secular faction in the West Bank. So far, the invitees to Egypt's conference sound enthusiastic:

The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, has invited the Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian leaders to a summit next week, Palestinian officials have said.

Israel said a meeting could take place, but that nothing had been decided.

The talks between Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, would be the first since Hamas won elections 18 months ago.

The conditions could be right for a real advance in peace negotiations, and it couldn't come at a better time for Hosni Mubarak. Congress just voted to partially restrict aid to Egypt, tiring of Mubarak's lack of action on the Gaza border. They want Egypt to stop the tunnelling operations that allowed Hamas to garner so much weaponry for its coup, and also reportedly allows other Islamist groups access to Gaza as well. Mubarak could lose $200 million a year if he doesn't do something spectacular soon.

For Mahmoud Abbas, the time may also be right. Under attack from the Islamists, he needs powerful friends if he expects to remain alive for any length of time. Saeb Arakat stated the obvious: if the PA is to remain viable, it has to deliver an end to occupation and a peace settlement with which everyone can live -- literally. The longer conditions remain unstable, the more likely Hamas or other Islamists will eventually conduct a similar coup in the West Bank. Now that Hamas has rebelled and has sequestered themselves idiotically in Gaza, Abbas no longer has to court their agreement on a deal for the West Bank, which gives him more flexibility with Israel.

Israel and the US have to enjoy the conditions on the ground for this round of talks, which the US apparently will not attend. For the first time in years, they can ignore Hamas and its leadership in Syria. Also, for the first time, they have a purported partner in Abbas who needs a deal more than Israel does. That could give them an actual opening for a settlement that would satisfy at least the moderate Arab nations, and help them to isolate Iran and Syria diplomatically.

The time may be right for these peace talks -- because Abbas has lost his triangle-strategy partners at long last.  Thursday, June 21, 2007 

www.captainsquartersblog.com

*

*

PAKISTAN BUILDING A NEW NUKE PLANT

By Charles Johnson

News to make you feel safe and warm: as Pakistani MPs openly support Osama bin Laden and scream for the death of Salman Rushdie, satellite photos have revealed that Pakistan is nearing completion of a previously unknown plutonium production reactor.

Chalk up another success for Nobel Peace Prize winners Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA.

A satellite photograph obtained by ABC News reveals Pakistan is nearing completion of a third, previously unknown plutonium production reactor, suggesting Pakistan may be planning to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal. 

“With large stocks of plutonium, Pakistan can build a new generation of lighter, more powerful weapons that can more easily be launched via missiles and can cause far more damage,” said David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), which, along with Digital Globe, provided the satellite image to ABC News. 

The image, taken on June 3, indicates the new reactor is a replica of a second heavy water reactor, also under construction, at Khushab, approximately 109 miles south of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.  Thursday, June 21, 2007  

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

BENIGHTED

From AFP: New Rushdie protests after Britain defends award. (via Little Green Footballs)

Muslim anger flared Thursday after Britain defended Salman Rushdie's knighthood, with fresh protests against the novelist and Pakistani traders offering a big reward for his beheading.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Indian Kashmir and Pakistan, while Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, criticised the timing of the honour.

The Indian-born Rushdie was given the award on Saturday, 18 years after he was sentenced to death by Iran's hardline clerical regime for writing what it said was a blasphemous book, "The Satanic Verses".

"We will give 10 million rupees (165,000 dollars) to anyone who beheads Rushdie," Islamabad traders' association leader Ajmal Baluch told around 200 people in one of the Pakistani capital's main bazaars.

The crowd chanted, "Cut off the head of Salman Rushdie!" ...

Later Afzal Sahi -- the speaker of the Punjab province assembly and a member of the Pakistan Muslim League party that backs President Pervez Musharraf -- said in a debate that he would "definitely kill" Rushdie if he could.

During a protest against Musharraf by thousands of people in Lahore witnesses said a large part of the crowd briefly chanted, "Death to Britain! Death to Rushdie!"

From the BBC: Why Salman Rushdie was knighted.

His book, The Satanic Verses, was seen as so offensive to Muslims that he was forced into hiding, under threat of death.

The latest controversy over his knighthood appears to have shocked the people involved in nominating and selecting him.

Jonathan Heawood, director of the English branch of Pen, said: "We have argued for a long time that Salman Rushdie should be recognised by the government as a giant of world literature.

"I've been struggling for a form of words that does not sound naive but we were taken aback, everyone was taken aback, by the scale of the reaction."  Thursday, June 21, 2007

AREN'T JOURNALISTS ALLOWED TO BE AMERICANS?

By Ed Morrissey

Many in the blogosphere have linked to this MS-NBC report on the political contributions of mainstream journalists, mostly to point out their overwhelmingly Democratic sympathies. That should get some discussion, but the secondary theme of the article seems at least as disturbing, if not more so:

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN's Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O'Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal's weekend edition; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV's former presidential campaign correspondent. ...

But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity — aside from voting — no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.

First, let's just finally acknowledge that this validates the point conservatives have made for years, if not decades. The people who write the news, who edit the content, and who decide what makes it into print or on the air have an almost unanimous affiliation with the Democratic Party. In a nation where 34% of voters affiliate with Democrats and 30% with Republicans, 90% of journalists that donate to political parties donate to Democrats.

Unfortunately, the reaction of these media outlets tends towards cover-up rather than openness. In that sense, they take a page from modern campaign-finance reform by trying to solve a problem through top-down suppression of political action rather than just opting for full disclosure. As my friend Paul Mirengoff notes, demanding an end to political donations does nothing to establish balance or objectivity; it just hides the evidence of bias a little more effectively. It hides information from the news consumers that could give them a more informed basis on which to judge the product.

And there's an even more fundamental problem with this approach. Why should journalists have to trade away their rights to political expression in order to work in the media? They are Americans, after all. Again, in this instance, it's exactly like the BCRA; it strips a fundamental right of political assembly and speech from a segment of American society. Regardless of how one feels about bias in the media, that approach is fundamentally wrong. Journalists should demand an end to those policies, and First Amendment activists should support them.

ARISING FROM THE DEAD YET AGAIN

By Ed Morrissey

Ralph Nader has Democrats looking for a wooden stake and a truckload of garlic. Nader, who helped bury two Democratic presidential campaigns, threatens to run again -- and has already taken aim at the frontrunner:

Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters.

"You know the two parties are still converging -- they don't even debate the military budget anymore," Nader said in a 30-minute interview. "I really think there needs to be more competition from outside the two parties." ...

And while Nader, 73, realizes he might once again be accused of being a "spoiler" candidate, he says the Democrats could win in 2008, unless they spoil things for themselves.

"Democrats have become, over the years, very good at electing very bad Republicans," Nader said. "Democrats always know how to implode, how to be ambiguous, how to waver, how not to be authentic."

Nader didn't do enough damage to John Kerry to get the blame for George Bush's relection, but he kneecapped Al Gore enough in Florida to cost the Democrats the White House in 2000. Ever since, he has plagued the party in two ways -- by presenting an alternative for disaffected Democrats in the elections themselves, and by providing a rallying point for the hard Left between them. Democrats keep declaring him politically dead, but he seems to keep resurrecting himself just enough to remain painfully relevant.

He still has fangs, too, which he unleashed on Hillary:

"She is a political coward," Nader said. "She goes around pandering to powerful interest groups on the one hand and flattering general audiences on the other. She doesn't even have the minimal political fortitude of her husband."

Just when Democrats and the media have started to salivate at the thought of an independent run from Michael Bloomberg, their bete noir returns.  Thursday, June 21, 2007