Background
The operation began early Tuesday morning with close air support engaging three river crossings and one bridge with eight 2,000 pound bombs and 14-500 pound bombs. The locations are used by al-Qaida to conduct their attacks and were engaged to prevent their escape.
“This operation was very important for the people of Sherween because they were able to find a very big hideout for the terrorists,” said Staff Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem, commander of Iraqi Security Forces in Diyala province. “It was a very big surprise for the terrorists and the people that support them.”
The people of Sherween played a vital role in this operation as they fought side-by-side the ISF to help them capture and kill known terrorists.
Members of the IA also cleared a local mosque, a suspected terrorist haven, and identified mortar tubes, a mortar cache, small-arms munitions, a sniper rifle and machine guns. The other weapons cache included small-arms munitions and IED-making materials.
“The political impact will strengthen the local population’s confidence in the IA and the local government,” said Maj. John Woodward, 6-9 ARS executive officer. “It will also facilitate Sunni Resistance fighting in the Muqdadiyah area as the people have grown tired of the destruction al-Qaida offers.”
“Such an operation will have a very big impact on the future of Diyala,” said Kareem. “This will serve as lessons for the terrorists and their supporters.
“Now they will start thinking there is no safe haven,” Kareem continued. “The ISF and CF will follow them wherever they go.”
| United States Marine Corps portal | |
| Iraq portal |
|
|
Read more about this topic: Operation Saber Guardian
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)