[Note: So I had a previous post that went by this title, but this once touches on it in more depth, enjoy. Also in case any of my unit higher-ups are reading, this article has been OpSec Approved by Battalion]
It is April, and Baqouba is reported as a major hot spot of terrorist activity and is named an Al-Qaeda in Iraq stronghold. AQI holds the residents of Baqouba in a strangle hold of fear and oppression. Coalition forces enact Operation Arrowhead Ripper, a major offensive through the Diyala River Valley to reclaim it. That was 2007, and at that time Coalition Forces not show their faces without expecting a shot being fired, or an explosion of some sort going off. It truly was an unclaimed portion of the Country.
I arrived in Baqouba in August of 2007, after Arrowhead Ripper to finish securing Baqouba and relieve the unit (3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division) so that they could redeploy home. It was an interesting task for me and my fellow soldiers as we had just arrived from Baghdad in the hot spot neighborhood of Doura.
The security situation in Baqouba has changed drastically since I arrived. My first time on the streets of Baqouba was met with fearful residents who refused to speak or be loosely associated with Americans, a Muqtar (a neighborhood leader) had been murdered for working with Americans to better the lives of his neighbors, and House Born IEDs (HBIEDS) were a normal thing. Within our first month in the new sector we encountered 6 IEDs, 2 unexploded ordnances (UXO), 5 HBIEDs, 8 ammunition and weapons caches, 6 murders, 2 firefights, and we had arrested 4 AQI operatives. It was quite the busy month, as we flew by the seat of our pants to familiarize ourselves with the streets, the people, and the leaders.
Our first issue was to purge the area of the existing weapons caches, HBIEDs, UXO, and IEDs. Once that was out of the way we could focus better on those who planted them, and it was a daunting task. In the following 3 months we found over 11 IEDs, 6 HBIEDs, 2 Suicide Vests, and 8 more weapons and ammunition caches. This doesn’t include the murders, and 3 brothers in arms we lost in that time period.
After 5 months of grueling work, and several major raiding operations we saw the fruits of our labors, finding fewer caches and explosives, seeing no murders, and we began to close in on the tighter circle of AQI operatives, who were now trying to lay low in the area. We have seen 4 months straight with no murders, no suicide vests, and no coalition forces wounded or killed. We’ve seen in the past 4 months, 12 AQI Cell Members arrested and turned into the Iraqi Judicial System, and prosecuted, and less than 3 IEDs, HBIEDs, and Caches. It truly is a radically different place than it was when we had inherited it.
Now if you walk the streets of my platoon’s area, people will wave and greet you in the street, children run and try and shake your hands, Muqtars greet us in the streets to discuss business, and we now have double the Muqtars than we started with. Electricity runs to almost all of the houses, trash gets picked up, water runs, and the markets are bustling. Even school is packed with eager young students, whom we surprised with 500 lbs of school supplies donated by Mead.
I can’t affirm to you that the surge has been a complete success all over Iraq, but I can assure you that where I work, and from what I have seen, it has changed the lives of these Iraqi Citizens here in Baqouba. I have seen this city move from an Al-Qaeda stronghold of fear and oppression, into a blossoming community.