Insurgents stormed a jail around dawn Tuesday in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad, killing 19 police and a courthouse guard in a prison break that freed dozens of prisoners and left 10 attackers dead, authorities said.
As many as 100 insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the judicial compound in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. The assault began after the attackers fired a mortar round into the police and court complex, said police Brig. Ali al-Jabouri.
At least 33 prisoners were freed in the jail break.
After burning the police station, the insurgents detonated roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said. At least 13 policemen and civilians and 15 gunmen were wounded.
One of our aims in fighting the enemy has been to whittle them down so that inferior Iraqi forces will still be superior to them. I've called this atomizing the enemy. Keep the enemy is small groups and they can't overrun patrols or outposts.
So is this a trend or an unusual event? Is this an area turned over to Iraqi control that they could not control sufficiently?
Or is the target what prompted the extraordinary effort? Losing at least a quarter of their force (killed and wounded) is pretty heavy to pay and shows one reason why they don't do this too much.
With luck we can track down those who were busted out of prison and use them to round up or kill the attackers.
But just massing in this large of a force without getting smashed up beforre they could take the building and then chased down and killed by a reaction force is disturbing.
On the other hand, the article also notes that the annual Shia pilgrimmage was largely untouched by enemy attacks this year. That is a victory for the good guys quite clearly.
Like I say, watch this type of thing for signs the enemy is regrouping.
UPDATE: The enemy tried another big attack. But this time their two-platoon attack failed big time:
Insurgents attacked a police station Wednesday for a second day in a row, but U.S. and Iraqi forces captured 50 of them after a two-hour gunbattle.
About 60 gunmen attacked the police station in Madain, south of Baghdad, with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, said police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi. U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, catching the insurgents in crossfire, he said.
Four police were killed, including the commander of the special unit, and five were wounded, al-Mohammadawi said. None of the attackers died, and among the captives was a Syrian.
Even the earlier attack was an expensive "victory" for the enemy. The latest is hard to describe as anything but a major defeat for the enemy. Although NPR did its part this morning by only reporting a big attack and not mentioning the small matter of rounding up nearly the whole bunch. Just an oversight I'm sure.
It is interesting that the enemy is returning to tactics they largely abandoned early in the counter-insurgency after they got pasted time and again--even against support troops. That's why the enemy turned to IEDs so they'd be exposed to our forces less often. So why go back to a failed tactic?
Still, I'd prefer it if the enemy could not mass for attacks like this. But a few more like these and the enemy will be incapable again.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. A week ago I may have predicted this wave (well two so far) of large attacks when I wondered if the Iraqis really did break up a plot to attack the Green Zone and then noted the subsequent chatter on the enemy's nets:
With any luck the chatter is about the failure of the Green Zone attack. I hope that is what they planned and now the chatter is figuring out how to salvage something from this. Could we see a hasty attack out of fear of losing compromised assets? If so, we could have a jihadi television operation that fails in its military mission pretty soon.
And given that the Green Zone plot was of a conventional attack nature, it makes sense that there are a bunch of insurgents out there who were trained in conventional attacks. Could these be the people that were going to be part of the Green Zone attack and the enemy is using them up since they are there? Perhaps a use-'em-or-lose-'em move based on worries we will roll them up?
THIRD UPDATE: Strategypage says only 25 attackers were involved in the first attack. This is more reassuring than the company-sized attack. It makes the attack success in penetrating the defenses more impressive but also means a far higher percentage of the attackers died.
Perhaps 75 more were engaged in supporting operations to block a counter-attack and Strategypage is only talking about numbers in the assault element.
Let me conclude with this assessment:
Attacking a police station, to free your captured buddies, is a suicidal way to operate. It's reminiscent of Japanese tactics during World War II.
Like they say, sometimes these attacks will succeed but usually it just results in a lopsided body count that we win. And I ask again, why is the enemy using tactics pretty much guaranteed to kill them off? Are they the remnants of the aborted Green Zone plot? Are new insurgent commanders in charge who don't remember the beating they took when they attacked like conventional forces early in the insurgency? If this continues, it may be a significant question to answer.
