Operation Lightning Hammer II

edition.cnn.com...

It looks like the U.S. Commanders & myself shared the same opinion on putting the pressure on Al Qaeda in Iraq in the northern part of the country. This is where they've been uprooted to, originally using Anbar as their main base. Specifically Diyala & Nineveh provinces are hotbeds of activity now. It's good to see we are actively engaging them.

I welcome this news of a new assault in the north because if we have any hopes of destroying Al-Qaeda in Iraq specifically, we need to keep them away from the majority areas of the Sunni population. So if they are kept in areas with smaller Sunni populations to hide in, they can be more easily found and killed, or captured. The North of Iraq is very diverse with many different ethnic and religious groups, a good place to cause problems, but not the best place to hide at all. Places like Anbar province where the Sunni Tribes have actually been fighting Al-Qaeda for several months now are the model to look at for the future of the other Sunni regions. They got the hint that being on the U.S.'s side is where the money is at. It's the winning team. They also realized if they just stepped up for a while we would back down and go away, and this is ultimately what the Iraqis want, for us to leave. So much so that the Sunni's are even fighting alongside us to an extent, just to speed up the handover of security in their towns. They realized that we will give control to the indigenous local Iraqis of that area, where Al-Qaeda will dominate and control those same areas with foreign occupiers as well. Their freedom is more easily gained through working with us, being our heirs, because they know we have to leave eventually.

If al-Qaeda isnt dealt with, they could perform a Coup'de tat as soon as we withdraw on the Iraqi government, taking over with a radical Sunni terrorist doctrine. This would cause Iran to invade Iraq for the sake of the Shiite majority, and it would be occupation and sectarian war all over again! If we do not destroy Al-Qaeda, look for this to happen in the future.

" The military said the operation "follows Lightning Hammer I ... to deny al Qaeda safe haven in the provinces" of Salaheddin, Nineveh, Diyala, and Kirkuk.

The military said the original Operation Lightning Hammer -- August 13 to September 1 -- ousted militants from the Diyala River valley, northeast of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province.

"Al Qaeda cells were driven from Baquba in Diyala due to Operation Arrowhead Ripper in June and July and then pursued in the Diyala River valley during Operation Lighting Hammer in August," Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Task Force Lightning and Multinational Division-North."

Thoughts?

[edit on 9/6/2007 by runetang]

I guess nobody cares about Al-Qaeda anymore ..

Well, I'm releasing a vid soon called "Head Remover: Wandering Man of Zarqa".

It's an anime movie about a middle eastern man who can explode his body but not die as his special power. the cool part is, hes actually a bad guy so the plot is from the antagonists point of view and his goal in life is to collect people's heads that he cuts off with a really sharp goat killing knife.