Bill Roggio reported yesterday that Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to go after the Mahdi Army, both in Baghdad and in Basra.
Iraqi troops have cleared two Mahdi Army strongholds in Basrah and reportedly have surrounded three others as they prepare to press the operation. In Baghdad, the Iraqi Army and US forces continue to clash with the Mahdi Army while forces have moved into southwestern Sadr City and set up a "demonstration area" to distribute aid and provide local security.
Counterinsurgency tactics are at work in Baghdad's Sadr City, as Iraqi and Coalition troops push to win hearts and minds as well as the fight against the militias
The operation involves more than military operations, as the Iraqi government seeks to wrest control of the Mahdi Army's grip on public services inside Sadr City. "The aim now is to launch an ambitious plan of 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day public works and services-improvement projects designed to convince the local population that the Iraqi government -– and not Sadr's Mahdi Army militia –- is best able to improve the quality of life in an impoverished expanse of pot-holed streets, open sewers, and joblessness," the Christian Science Monitor reported. "US and Iraqi military are now set up and living among the Sadr City residents in the 'demonstration' area of the southern third of the sector."
It's counterinsurgency by the book. That book being the US Army/Marines Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
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