Helicopters blanketed Amarah with pamphlets Saturday urging residents to cooperate with Iraqi security forces as they prepare for a new operation against Shiite militia fighters in the oil-producing southern city.
The pamphlets urged residents to provide information about "the hideouts of outlaws" and warned them to stay indoors when the new operation dubbed "Imposing Law" starts, two local police officers said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release information to the media.
No kickoff date for the operation was provided in the pamphlets.
Iraqi soldiers accompanied by American military advisers have begun moving into Amarah, capital of Maysan province and the purported hub of weapons smuggling from nearby Iran.
U.S. and Iraqi commanders also say many militia chiefs have fled to Amarah — a longtime safe haven for anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia — and Iran after security operations against them in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City district.
With al Qaeda running from Mosul to Syria and Sadrists running to Iran, we are approaching the time when Iraq's enemies will be mostly based across their borders. This is not a good thing in the long run, but it is better than the recent past when enemies had places to hide inside Iraq. And in the long run, Iran and Syria will have to face the consequences of a much better Iraqi military backed by American power seeking to curtail whatever sanctuaries Iran and Syria allow.
Increasingly, it appears that only direct Syrian and Iranian military action can reverse our progress. And that option counts on weak American will to absorb the first blow and go on to destroy the attacking formation. Sadly, I don't know if that assumption is ridiculous or not.
UPDATE: It does not look like the Shia thugs are making a last stand in Amarah:
"Our military forces ... have completed their deployment to ensure control of the whole city," the Iraqi Army's deputy chief of staff, Nasir al-Abadi, said in a statement.
The show of force in Amara, a stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, is the latest stage in a government drive to extend its authority to areas that had been controlled by Shi'ite militias or Sunni Arab insurgents.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has given "outlaws" and "criminals" in Amara and the rest of the southern province of Maysan until Wednesday to surrender and hand over weapons.
He has authorized security forces to launch major operations from Thursday, saying the state must end "chaos" and crime in the impoverished province bordering Iran.
As their forward elements are driven back toward Iran, the mullahs are liable to get a little nervous. If the Shia thugs surrender the Iraqis learn what Iran is doing. And if the Shia thugs run to Iran, Iran is exposed as harboring the thugs.
At what point does Iran figure they need to cut their losses and kill off their fleeing pawns to keep them from being an embarassment to Tehran?
