LWJ: "Iraqis begin to 'despise' the Mahdi Army"
The Surge and Counterinsurgency Got the Ball Rolling. Now it's up to the Iraqis to keep it in motion.
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in embedded reporting | Mahdi Army | Media | War — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The latest in kick-@$$ war reporting comes from Bill Ardolino, currently embedded in Baghdad and reporting for the absolutely indispensable Long War Journal.
(As an aside, I'd like to take a moment to exhort my colleagues at RedState and across the 'sphere to rely on the hands-down best news source of the Global War on Terror, the Long War Journal, instead of linking the NYT, WaPo, etc. when they have their one-in-a-million informed, honest articles. The Long War Journal is the AP/AFP/Reuters/insert-wire-here of the GWOT. Unfortunately, it lacks the recognition and accolades that it deserves, especially since it offers the best, most timely, most accurate, and most comprehensive reportage on the Long War of pretty much any outfit in the known world. Want to know what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else that matters in the GWOT? Get your up-to-the-minute and accurate reportage -- including eyewitness reports from key embeds who go where mainstream "journalists" don't dare -- from the Long War Journal...and tell all of your friends about it, as well.)
Anyway, back to Ardolino's latest. He's in Rusafa, a "large district in central Baghdad bordered by the Tigris River to the southwest and Sadr City to the northeast." The district, which is "predominantly Shia, but contains significant Sunni enclaves and a small Christian population, with a surprising number of openly practicing churches," and which has been known in the past to have heavy Jaish al Mahdi (Mahdi Army) activity.
Aside from its bordering on the suddenly-flagrant Sadr City, Rusafa is important because the district "contains Baghdad’s largest and most famous markets, including the Shorja, Saria, and Bab al Sharji, some of which were the scenes of high-profile suicide bombings during the sectarian-fueled carnage of 2006-2007."
Read on.
According to Ardolino:
Over the past year, and especially over the past six months, the district has calmed significantly. The predominant remaining threats are Mahdi Army mortar rounds aimed at the International Zone that fall short and suicide vest bombers and car bombs that target the markets and Coalition forces. Less successful suicide attacks occur maybe once a month, while once common highly successful “spectacular attacks” have become much less frequent.
As was the case in several other areas of Iraq -- from mammoth Anbar Province in the west, to the territory near Salman Pak (both of which were once al Qaeda strongholds) -- the turn in Rusafa's fortunes was begun by the coalition's change in strategy and increase in numbers, but has been maintained (and will be in the future, if it is to continue) by the Iraqis themselves.
"The 450 soldiers of the 3-89 [Cavalry]" are the only coalition troops in Rusafa, writes Ardolino. They "are responsible for the district’s security, in conjunction with thousands of Iraqi Army, Iraqi National Police, Iraqi Police, Kurdish private contractors, and Sons of Iraq."
The "Sons of Iraq" are to Rusafa what the "Concerned Local Citizens" groups are in the areas immediately around the district. Like those Concerned Local Citizens groups, which seemed to sprout from nowhere beginning late last summer (going from tentative meetings about organizing neighborhood watches, like this one that I was present at in the middle of August) to filling their rolls with tens of thousands of volunteers in less than five months), the Sons of Iraq have, since their establishment seven months ago, grown in size and in effectiveness to the point where Captain John Thornburg, commander of the 3-89’s Bravo Troop, credits them with having "turned one of the most violent areas of Baghdad into one of the most quiet."
Says Thornburg:
The SOI have exceeded expectations. They’ve turned one of the most violent areas of Baghdad into one of the most quiet...Specifically, they are looking for Mahdi Army. They know who comes into their area, they man checkpoints 24 hours a day, they do vehicle searches, they question people and they patrol. The locals trust them and they are happy with them. They’ve earned a lot of wasta [respect] from the citizens, and the results speak for themselves. It’s a real success story.
The people in Rusafa distrust both the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi coalition government, whose ranks of National Police are still believed to be infiltrated to some degree by Mahdi militants.
Above all, though (writes Ardolino), [Faris Abdul] Hassan [leader of Rusafa's Sons of Iraq] tand his neighborhood watchmen do not like the Mahdi Army."
“Originally, the Jaish al Mahdi [Mahdi Army] in our area used to deceive people by using the name of the religion to do their purposes,” said Dhia, Hassan’s executive officer. “They were all corrupted. They have history in crime, robberies, murders, rapes, and all kinds of bad things. They even reached the level of kidnapping people and demanding ransoms just because they have money. It didn’t matter if he is Shia or Sunni; just because he has money. They gave a bad reputation for Islam.”American officials assert that the final factor that has improved security is the citizenry’s fatigue with violence and the militias.
“They’re still intimidated by [the Mahdi Army], but they’re tired of them,” Thornburg told Ardolino, who continues:
In the past the Mahdi Army commanded local support because of the need for security in a vacuum and intimidation tactics. But as security improved and other forces are gaining prominence, support for the Mahdi militia in Rusafa is evaporating.
The recent flare-ups in Sadr City have added to the public's resistance against what remains of Muqtada al Sadr's militia. "Since the government operation against the Mahdi Army in Basrah began in March," writes Ardolino, "Mahdi fighters began firing mortars and rockets from Sadr City itself, a move that spurred the recent Iraqi Army and US incursion into the poor Shia enclave.
A side effect of this new trajectory for indirect fire is that some rounds fall short of their target and land in southwestern Rusafa, killing civilians and destroying property. US personnel assert that this is angering the district’s populace against the militias, and 3-89 Cav soldiers press the issue by immediately passing out leaflets that explain where the artillery came from after an attack.
Sadr, his "Army," and their Iranian taskmaskers are becoming more reviled by the day in the areas affected by the continuation of the losing battle they continue to fight against the coalition and against the improving Iraqi security forces and citizen soldiers.
"'Many educated people' know that both the Mahdi Army and Iran are affiliated with Sadr," Ardolino quotes one Iraqi as saying, "and that his popularity is waning in Rusafa as a result. 'He is in Iran, not even here fighting with his own people'."
As American brigades rotate back to the home front and are not replaced (in keeping with the drawdown of the successful "surge" tactic that supplemented the counterinsurgency strategy implemented by the coalition in 2007), leaving the U.S. units still there to cover wider and wider swaths of the California-sized country (thereby exacerbating the already-stretched-thin state of the small American force in Iraq), an opportunity is created for the Iraqi security forces and neighborhood watches to really begin pulling their weight in the effort to secure their districts and maintain order in their homeland.
Ardolino writes that this process may be being helped along a bit by the recent conflict in Basra, and the current friction in Sadr City. "Some American officials," he writes, "believe that the Iraqi government’s confrontation with the militia is giving the Iraqi Army momentum and further shifting public opinion."
He concludes:
“We are so close to establishing a fully legitimized ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] structure,” said Captain Nathan Hubbard, the commander of the 3-83 Cav’s Alpha Troop, which is responsible for a Joint Security Station in the Al Fahdil area of Rusafa. “I would say that with the successful conclusion of Basrah and the continuation of [the offensive in] Sadr City -- the closing off of the criminal elements down there -- you’ll see a significant swing in public belief in the ISF. More [Iraqis] would buy into ISF being a legit force. Right now, the citizens are maybe 40 percent pro-government, 40 percent on the fence, and some seriously anti-ISF guys on the side. The people want a force that is willing to go after any terrorists, including AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq], Mahdi Army, the PKK [the Kurdistan Workers’ Party]. They just like to see the government doing something.”
There are some areas in Iraq where the ISF -- Iraqi Security Forces -- have received the best possible training, and are accepted as being a legitimate, positive force in the community. In the rest of the country, situations like these give the Iraqi people the opportunity to come to that conclusion about their own local ISF, and can help further drive those civilians who simply want to live their lives both peacefully and prosperously away from the weakened militias and toward the increasingly-legitimate organizations of the democratic state of Iraq.
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LWJ: "Iraqis begin to 'despise' the Mahdi Army" 23 Comments (0 topical, 23 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
It's heartening to see the Iraqi people stand against the islamists, and to see the ISF really gaining the strength it needs.
I came across the LWJ about a year ago-ish and I find it to be vastly superior to any reporting concerning the GWOT.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
I'll pass it on to all my conservative and lib friends. There was a link to a video there regarding the closure of the port of Portland! They were talking about Portland Oregon but they could just have easily been talking of the port of Portland Maine, our largest bastion of socialism! (Our Portland doesn't have as many Starbucks though!)
omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina
From this LWJ article...
Mahdi Army takes a hit in Baghdad, Basrah
...
US and Iraqi forces have killed 18 Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City and New Baghdad since the afternoon of May 3.
...
US and Iraqi forces have inflicted heavy casualties on the Mahdi Army in Sadr City and surrounding neighborhoods since the fighting broke out in Baghdad on March 25.
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Ten Special Groups leaders and operatives have been captured during raids in Baghdad and Hillah since May 2.
...
Soldiers from Quick Reaction Force 1 [1st Iraqi Army Division] cleared the Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhood of Al Latif.
...
I don't really know what he means by this post, but don't really care for spurious neocon pronouncements.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
It's nice to hear more good news out of Iraq.
with an occasional "good news" piece thrown in for good measure. Beyond that, most of the news items I saw on this one day seem to be much the same pieces we would see on most other news sites, and would appear (at least to me) to contradict many of Captain Hubbard's assessment of the situation.
(1)
most of the news items I saw on this one day seem to be much the same pieces we would see on most other news sites
That's because it's a news site, not a pipe-dream site. The reason it looks "similar" is because the AP/AFP/Reuters/etc. refer to it for their news (uncited, of course), because LWJ is, 9 out of 10 times, ahead of them in getting breaking news, and out-reports circles around the presswires and everybody else. It's recommended as a news source, not as a place to go have yourself assured that everything's rosy on every front in the war on terror, all the time.
(2)
most of the news items I saw on this one day...would appear (at least to me) to contradict many of Captain Hubbard's assessment of the situation
First, let's go to the dictionary. Yes, do it -- look up "micro" and look up "macro." Clear on the difference now? Then, go to a map. California will work. Take a look at, say, Orange County. Now, imagine you're getting a quote from the young captain in charge of the Company (or "Troop," in the case of Cavalry) who is responsible for coordinating security and counter-terror operations in Orange County, about the state of security and operations there.
A person who had an iota of self-awareness and wasn't too thick in the head to actually allow himself to grasp reality would understand that the Captain in this illustration would not be speaking for, say, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, or anywhere else -- just his area of operations. That's the case with the story here, which is about the Rusafa district of Baghdad. It's not about Baqubah, it's not about Samarra, it's not about Basra. It's about district in Baghdad. Captain Hubbard isn't claiming to speak about an entire country -- just about his area of operations.
Any clearer? If not, it is, of course, because you don't want it to be. There's no reason you should have needed this explanation.
just have to make an insufferable ass of themselves.
I don't know what "most other news sites" you visit but those with embedded reporters are fairly rare (this, alone, would exclude virtually all major US newspapers who rely on Iraqi stringers to seem to file reports while they aren't setting roadside bombs or making jihadi videos.)
LWJ is probably the sole source for reporting on combat operations in anything other than a cursory fashion.
If you don't like what you read there, that's your business. But don't insult our intelligence.
"A man does what he can and endures what he must."
it appears you completely missed the point of my comment. If you'll go back reread the comments at the very top of the article, they seemed to me to saying LWJ was a better source of Iraq "news" than others because it was reporting "positives" instead of negatives. I was not trying to insult your intelligence.
How do you get "reporting "positives" instead of negatives" from:
" Unfortunately, it lacks the recognition and accolades that it deserves, especially since it offers the best, most timely, most accurate, and most comprehensive reportage on the Long War of pretty much any outfit in the known world."
That statement isn't saying it's ignoring the negatives. They report the whole truth. Something you don't often get from the AP.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
at the top of the article. It didn't promise "positives", it promised accurate, timely, comprehensive. You're reading the article with your liberal glasses on again. Take 'em off and read what's actually printed there.
...spot on.
BTW, please use "reply to this" when responding to comments, so that the threading appears correctly and folks can see whom you're responding to. Thanks.
JE
It's an immensely better source for Iraq news if for nothing more then the reporters are true journalists, not the biased agenda driven hacks that supply the MSM daily chatter.
As for the other news, Streiff is 100% dead on with the papers using Iraqi stringers for updates. Most cases prove to be inaccurate or just plain lies.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
I have a problem with the Long War Journal, or whatever Bill Roggio's journal used to be called in past years.
We all know the MSM is slanted towards anti-war. But Bill Roggio is clearly slanted toward pro-war. I used to read his journal, and it was impossible to ever tell that anything was seriously amiss with the Iraq War by reading his writing.
In 2005-2006, you couldn't tell from Roggio's writing that the Rumsfeld/Casey warfighting strategy was failing. You couldn't tell that the insurgency was spinning out of control. His spin was relentlessly positive--cherry-picking the successes while ignoring the slow strategic deterioration of the U.S. position.
I understand why some conservatives and supporters of the Iraq War like that sort of thing. They crave reassurance that we are doing the right thing. Especially those with friends and relatives in the military.
But the danger of such "happy talk" is that it blinds you to the need for real reform. If we had listened to Roggio, we wouldn't have seen the need to replace Casey with Petraeus or replace Rumsfeld with Casey. Because he never broached those topics. The MSM did--they openly criticized Rumsfeld's handling of this entire operation. And they were right. Because when Bush announced the surge in January 2007, he admitted that in 2006, we had been in real danger of losing the war--something you never heard from Roggio, but did hear from the New York Times.
I've been an engineer for 20 years in the private sector. And my approach, on every project, was always to hear the BAD news first. I didn't want reassurance. I wanted to hear about problems in time to head them off.
In that sense, the MSM, however slanted against the war, has gone a good job with a war that, frankly, did NOT go according to plan. Liberal as they are, the MSM had it right: The U.S. was failing to win this war, the violence was escalating out of control. You didn't get that message from Bill Roggio.
In this case, the bad news bears were right. The critics of this war were right to be critical. Unfortunately.
Hey, if you want to believe what the America-hating liars tell you, then you're free to do it. But we're going to mock you for it, and we're certainly not going to stand by and let you get away with promoting those terrorist propaganda outlets unchallenged.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
How's that for a tag-line? :-)
I have a problem with the Long War Journal, or whatever Bill Roggio's journal used to be called in past years.
It was "The Fourth Rail."
We all know the MSM is slanted towards anti-war.
I'd argue more anti-Bush and anti-military, but regardless the issue isn't just the anti-American slant, but the fact that (a) their reportage is sensationalist (that's market-driven, as folks compete every day for headlines and every half-hour for TV stories), and (b) they simply don't have the contextual knowledge to understand what they're reporting and why it is or is not important -- let alone to explain it to other folks. As I wrote here last August:
it is open to debate how much difference a firsthand view of events would make to many journalists’ reports, given – due not only to a lack of experience and understanding within the AO, but also to a fundamental lack of military experience, or of understanding of military operations. In other words, even if these reporters did venture ‘outside the wire’ with their chosen military units, the vast majority likely lacks the military and contextual knowledge and background to really understand what it is they would be seeing.An example of this was recently given me by an officer I spoke with while at a previous embed. While a reporter was riding along with his convoy, an improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered along the road by the officer’s unit. Though the area around the IED was cordoned off to enable explosive ordnance disposal specialists to deal with the potentially deadly device, a vehicle persistently attempted to enter the secure area, ignoring verbal and signaled warnings, as well as flashing lights, all of which clearly meant for the driver to stop. Finally – unwilling to take a chance in an area known for vehicle-borne IED attacks – the officer authorized a warning shot to be fired in the direction of the car, which resulted in the driver finally coming to a stop. Not understanding what it was she was seeing – or, worse, in an attempt to push an agenda – the reporter, who left the unit at the end of her one-day ‘embed,’, openly wondered in her article the next day whether “these soldiers shoot at every car that they see.”
An observer with even the least amount of experience and understanding of such things would have asked the far more relevant – and intelligent - question of “why was this driver so persistently attempting to violate this cordon, that the soldiers there had to take step after step – building all the way to a warning shot – to convince him to stop?”
The Columbia Journalism Review concurred, saying in an outstanding April '08 write-up on the LWJ:
[Roggio] has what a lot of journalists reporting on the conflict lack: a background in military science and history...It’s not just that ‘x happened’—a bomb went off, a sniper rifle was found, etc. It’s what that means… at a strategic or operational level; and in the local situation, to understand what it means tactically.
It's all about accurate, comprehensive reportage, which is performed by those who actually understand what they're talking about.
Now, back to your comment:
But Bill Roggio is clearly slanted toward pro-war.
You folks really have trouble with your epithets. I really, really want you to find me somebody who is, literally, "pro-war." Come on - show me the money, as Cuba got an Oscar for saying. Put up or shut up.
I used to read his journal, and it was impossible to ever tell that anything was seriously amiss with the Iraq War by reading his writing.In 2005-2006, you couldn't tell from Roggio's writing that the Rumsfeld/Casey warfighting strategy was failing. You couldn't tell that the insurgency was spinning out of control. His spin was relentlessly positive--cherry-picking the successes while ignoring the slow strategic deterioration of the U.S. position.
Let's go back to the Columbia Journalism Review to answer that one. Two quotes -- the first, from the author of the piece:
while Roggio is pro-soldier—he wants the U.S. military to succeed at its job in Iraq and Afghanistan—he does, in fact, work hard at playing it straight politically; he tries to describe and explain the tactics of the mission, whether they are working or not.
And the second, from Andrew Cochran, the founder Counterterrorism Blog:
Bill wants to win. I don’t know if he’s necessarily pro-Bush. He wrote often last year about the failures in the Iraq strategy.
To so many who are greatly taken by appearances rather than reality, making known that you have a dog in the fight -- say, acknowledging that you'd prefer your country didn't lose a war -- is a sign of journalistic illegitimacy. Folks (you included, I would wager) prefer being told that the warm fuzzy anchorman on TV has no political leanings at all, and is just telling them the news straight, when that claim is tantamount to a bold-faced lie. We all have points of view, built-in biases colored by our experiences, etc. Don't pillory the person who is actually honest about where he's coming from -- at least he's not telling you lies to give you the snowed-in warm fuzzy that the majority of the press is.
I understand why some conservatives and supporters of the Iraq War like that sort of thing. They crave reassurance that we are doing the right thing. Especially those with friends and relatives in the military.
You're right about that, and that's as poor as the bad-news-only view that is given other places. However, anybody who has seen war will tell you that there is no black-and-white (well, hardly ever; every now and then there will be a Lake Trasimene or a Sicilian expedition, the devastating results of which can be penned in broad-tipped ink). Rah-rah cheerleading and poo-poo Eeyoring is for folks here at home who don't fully grasp what they're even seeing, hearing, or talking about.
The fact is, the prior planning for the Iraq war was weak at best, Gen. Casey's strategy was disastrous, the change in strategy last year was vital, and Gen. Petraeus was little less than a godsend. I've said that repeatedly (in the most depth here), and Bill believes the same thing.
However, that's neither here nor there. The LWJ seeks to alleviate both, by providing news -- with explanation -- from all fronts, and about all developments, both good and bad...and they do it better than anybody else in the biz. If you don't like it, don't read it -- just stick to your AP, etc. stories...and try not to think about how much of each of those stories was lifted from the LWJ, or how much more information you could have gotten if you referred to a media outlet that not only has people on the ground where those events are taking place, but is actually familiar with the situation and context in more than a drive-by manner. It's no skin off my nose either way.
....because it helps them feel nice and fuzzy with their world view. All of us in the independent media have experienced people with that POV to some degree or another; I posted on one particular case of this willful blindness to truth and reality last fall, when my reporting from Iraq was discounted by a Letter-to-the-Editor writer because I was up-front about my affiliations and personal experiences, rather then lying about being "impartial" and "objective" like those in the MSM.
I've recently run across this great blog about the transnational military conflict that you should have mentioned.
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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.