Oh Iraq, it's not you, it's me...and it's complicated

Several incidents in Iraq have caught my eye in the past couple of days. Two of them held my interest because they occured in 1-14's old battlespace; the third was just to the west of our stomping grounds and very much in our "area of interest"; the fourth was an attack in Baghdad which has garnered very little media attention.

I'll start with number three because sometimes you have to mix things up: a suicide bomber struck at a cafe in the town of Balad Ruz last Friday. The media is quick to point the blame on Al Qaida in Iraq but I'm not so sure. Balad Ruz has been relatively quiet since 2009 and while it was once a stronghold for AQI, the organizations control over the area dissipated due to several U.S. operations as well as Iraqi Army units putting a chokehold on the town and the farmland to the south. The Islamic State of Iraq (Al Qaida's name for a new umbrella insurgent group meant to put a more Iraqi face on the foreign dominated AQI) allegedly was formed in Balad Ruz and many of its members were given land in the area. I say "allegedly" because this was told to me by the BDE S2 for 1-25 SBCT so its accuracy is in question and I have seen other sources claim ISI began in the Anbar Province.

Balad Ruz is that spot 1/3 up between Baqubah and Mandali

Violence had also decreased in the town for the same reason, in my opinion anyway, due to the same reason violence dropped in Baghdad. Balad Ruz is a mixed town of Shia and Sunni as well as a good number of Kurds. The sectarian violence of 2006-07 led to internal movements leading to a division of the town. The Shia held the north part of town and the Sunnis held the south. The dividing line was the Baqubah-Mandali road that split the town. With the town now evenly divided there was no more thirst for sectarian violence and security forces were once again able to maintain order. By the time 3-2 SBCT arrived attacks and incidents had dropped to 0-1 attacks a month in Balad Ruz.

The article focuses on the fact that most of the victims of the attack were Shia, barely mentioning that they were Faili Kurds. My assessment of the attack is that it's less an AQI sectarian attack and more an ethnic attack aimed at diminishing Kurdish influence in an area that is somewhat under dispute. The Kurds have been attempting to push their borders and control farther south and west and this attack may have been a reaction to that push.

The attack in Baghdad was a hostage situation at a Christian church. ISI has claimed responsibility for the attack which led to at least 58 people being killed after security forces stormed the church. Two takeaways from this incident: 1) it appeared to be an entirely Iraqi led effort; and not just the "fake" Iraqi led missions where one Iraqi Army soldier is put in a mission planned, led, and manned by a bunch of American special forces soldiers. 2) it was done poorly, but then even the Russians frak things up sometimes.

Finally, the Jalula investigations division chief was killed by an IED on October 27th. This attack was likely a continuation of the attacks against Jalula security forces that have been occuring in the last several months and that I wrote about at the beginning of last month. Interesting note, the attack occured on the road that runs right next to FOB Cobra...d'oh.

In response to this incident, Iraqi security forces detained an individual allegedly in charge of the operation and who was a financier for AQI in the area. The detainment occurred in Sari Tapa, a village just to the west of Qara Tapa which is the northwest of FOB Cobra...where's that handy map...

Qara Tapa is the speck at the very north of the map spelled funny

Here's where things become interesting to me, and likely me alone. The individual detained shares a name very similar to an individual who we were targeting for some time but could never capture due to the remoteness of Sari Tapa and the early warning the individual received whenever we were coming. He was the leader of Jaysh al Islami (JAI) in the Qara Tapa area and we were only really targeting him because the Iraqis were targeting him; both sides only really went after him half heartedly.

The reason for this lackadasical attitude towards this individual was because JAI was no longer a threat in the area and had ceased conducting operations. JAI is a nationalistic organization that formed some time in 2004 or 2005 to fight off who they saw as invaders...us. Since there were very few U.S. troops in the Qara Tapa area in 2005 they targeted the next two logical organizations...Peshmerga who came into the region in 2006 at the behest of Maliki to help with the security situation and AQI who JAI felt was foreign and oppressive. In 2007 war broke out between JAI, AQI, and Ansar al Sunna (Kurdish/Sunni extremists who have a love/hate relationship with AQI). JAI pretty much lost with most of its members joining the newly formed JRTN (Baathist, nationalistic organization formed to fight the occupiers and bring back a Baathist regime). Our target said "fuck this" and quit fighting, content to hang out in Sari Tapa with his attractive wife. He complained constantly to the mukhtar of Sari Tapa reasoning that he never attacked Americans or the Iraqi Army, why was he being targeted. Our response...he had a warrant and in our defense we weren't trying very hard to capture him.

Anyway...if this individual detained for the bombing against the CID chief is our target than one of two things is going on. Either he is being made the scapegoat or he joined AQI and is funding their operations. The more simple explaination is that the individual detained is our targets cousin who if I recall correctly had connections to both AQI and JAI. Problem is, things are never simple in Northeast Diyala. 2-14 CAV, I do not envy you one bit.