Posted by
J. A. Colon on Monday, July 07, 2008 1:13:30 AM
(originally reported by Marie Colvin in the Sunday Times)
In what appears to be one o the last squirmishes of the war on Al’Qaeda in Iraq, the 2nd Iraqi Army Division along with the “Brave Rifles” of the 3d Armor Cavalry Regiment (my old Unit) in Mosul, led the chare to crush the remainder 0.1% of Al’Qaeda forces in Iraq.
Al’Qaeda, once thought to have around 120000 fighters, is now thought to have 1200, encroached in the northern city of Mosul. They have being forced to a guerilla style of fighting, since they can no longer hold their territory.
The “Lion’s Roar”, name of the military combined arms operation, has resulted in the death of the Al’Qaeda leader, Abu Khalaf, and the arrest of over 1000 suspects.
Nouri Al’Maliki, cautiously pointed out that the terrorist group where trying to lay a claim in Baghdad, but were removed, he has battled the Mahdi Army of Muqtada Al’Sadr, who is presumably in Iran. The US Marines drove them out of the Anbar provinces in the reputed Sunni Triangle; the 3d ACR drove them out of the Ninewah provinces in 2005, and the British Army drove them out of Basra. While cautious not to give too much credit to our troops, is optimistic that we are, in fact winning the fight against fanatic extremist.
The importance of the victory in Ninewah is highlighted by the fact that, years earlier that was a passage for foreign fighters to come into the country. The 3d ACR closed that passage and now, instead of the usual 120 new terrorists per month, the amount declined to about 20 per month.
The mainstream media might hate reporting good news from Iraq; but it seems that we are winning the war on terror in Iraq.