Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, commander of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, said the operations had "neutralized" the group's ability to use the vast Euphrates River valley to organize and attract followers.
The fighting helped restore Iraqi control of the border with Syria to eliminate smuggling lines and paved the way for successful Sunni Arab regional participation in Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, he said in an interview with a small group of reporters at this dusty U.S. base in al Asad, in western Anbar province near the Syrian border.
He said U.S. forces had "dealt the enemy a ... significant blow out here in the western Euphrates, knocked him off of his stride, took away his areas where he was congregating, made it difficult for him to organize, and cut into his rat lines that run through this particular part of the country."
The al Qaeda types have been pushed out of former sanctuaries. I've read they fled to the southwest. This story also says that 2,500 Iraqi border posts have been established in the West.
The question is whether this disruption is more than temporary. If pushed out of their havens along the Euphrates River valley, they will be temporarily unable to push attackers and weapons into the core areas. If we killed enough, this will lower their abilities for a while as well. Such a temporary disruption was important to allow the elections to go forward.
But will the enemy be able to reestablish havens elsewhere in Iraq to reestablish new rat lines that push car bombs and attackers forward into the populated areas? Will the enemy regroup across the border in Syria if denied havens inside Iraq? Will the border posts be up to interdicting cross-border infiltration enough to really cripple the enemy?
I don't assume this is the last word in defeating the enemy. Foreign jihadis, criminals, Baathists, and Sunni tribes make for a multi-faceted enemy. We seem to be making progress in driving the foreign jihadis back and in getting Sunni tribal leaders to join the government. The Baathists still dream of glory but when they are the last standing they will have to flee. And the criminals prey on Iraqis in the chaos of war, still not matched by trained police able to track them down. But once the chaos of war subsides ad jihadis are kept out, Sunnis reject violence, and Baathists are defeated, the criminals will be easier to tackle.
And of course, if the jihadis find another way to funnel suicide bombers into central Iraq, we will again have to disrupt the new supply lines and hit their new sanctuaries. Will Syria be bold enough to fill the role of sanctuary?
