Operation Swarmer
Breaking news of a major air assault on Iraq. What's the bigger picture, though? Is this intended as a sign that the US is still in control? Is it a warning to the factions that lethal force may be visited upon them at any moment? Is it intended to mark the three year anniversary of the beginning of hostilities?
Probably all of these things. But what's for sure is that an all-guns-blazing Colonel Kildare-style attack is not the best way to deal with insurgents. And this is what the US forces just don't get.
The kind of war they are fighting is not a war where you can fight enemy formations in pitched battles over defined stretches of territory. It's a guerrilla war, where the enemy is smart, elusive and blends into the civilian population. Small groups, often acting entirely independently, make their move and then melt back into the towns and cities.
Just like in Vietnam. Except none of the lessons appear to have been learned.
My prediction for the news over the next few days: tens of American bodybags; scores of dead terrorists; hundreds of wounded and displaced civilians; maybe a thousand new recruits, militated to the cause; and increased tension across Iraq.
It's not going to reassure the Sh'ia majority; it'll only provoke the Sunnis. Even if it solves the Samarra problem, ultimately it'll create new ones.
US launches major Iraq air attack
The US military says it has launched its biggest air offensive in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, targeting insurgents near the central city of Samarra.
More than 50 aircraft and 1,500 Iraqi and US troops have been deployed in the operation, a military statement says.
A bomb attack on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 100km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, last month sparked widespread sectarian violence.
There are no independent reports of Thursday's offensive so far.
The US military said the assault, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was intended to "clear a suspected insurgent operating area" north-east of Samarra.
Iraqi interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN the attack had been necessary to prevent insurgents forming a new stronghold in the area, such as had been seen in the town of Falluja.
The offensive is expected to last several days "as a thorough search of the objective area is conducted".
Near the end of the first day, the joint US and Iraqi force said it had captured a number of weapons caches, containing shells, explosives and military uniforms.
US military spokesman Sgt Stan Lavery, in Baghdad, told the BBC the operation was focused on Iraq's Salahuddin province.
"We are trying to achieve denying the insurgency and the terrorists their weapons, and capturing and killing as many of them as we can," he said.
A senior Iraqi army officer told AFP news agency the offensive was "targeting bases of militants loyal to Zarqawi", the leader of the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
There are no reports of casualties or details of any insurgent resistance so far.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says it is clear the Americans do believe there are pockets of insurgents in the Samarra area.
Samarra has become a byword for sectarian violence following the shrine attack, our correspondent says, and the US is keen to be seen as attacking the roots of the violence.
The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says a major show of force is being carried out in the hope of breaking a cycle of escalating violence which it is feared could lead to civil war.
The Pentagon is keen to demonstrate that US and Iraqi forces can operate jointly and effectively in response to sectarian attacks, he says.
The military operation is also backing up the political message from the Bush administration in recent weeks that progress is being made in Iraq, he adds.
Asked whether President George Bush had ordered the offensive to bolster falling US support for the Iraq war, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the decision to attack had been made solely by commanders on the ground.
The operation coincides with the US announcement of a new national security strategy - in which it restates a policy of pre-emptive strikes first issued in 2002 and criticised since the Iraq war - and the first session of Iraq's new parliament.
It also comes shortly before the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Comments
Dammit. Wasn't actually a real story after all. Nice picture though.
Posted by: Philip Sen | March 24, 2006 11:01 PM