Operation Desert Shield was a 2006 operation by the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaeda in Iraq, planned in December 2005 as a push against American forces during the Iraq War. The goal was to destabilize the American foothold in the Anbar province over the course of six months.
The planning of the operation wasn't discovered by the Americans until documents captured after the death of Faris Abu Azzam were finally translated, and revealed the details of the operation. The army said the documents surprised them, showing that the insurgents had a "pretty robust command and control system".
Famous quotes containing the words operation, desert and/or shield:
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)
“It’s alive and waiting for you. Ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you, or the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can kill.”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)
“The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkled trophy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)