Monday, November 24, 2008

Task Force 88 Teams Capture Iranian-backed Shia Jihadists In Baghdad


Two separate operations in and around Baghdad have yielded the capture of eight members of the League of the Righteous and six members of the Hezbollah Brigades. This is great news and here are some of the details from Bill Roggio's The Long War Journal:


US forces have stepped up operations against the Iranian-backed Shia terror groups operating in Baghdad after a relative lull in November. Fourteen operatives from the League of the Righteous and the Hezbollah Brigades were captured in Baghdad during raids today.
Coalition forces - likely the hunter-killer teams from Task Force 88 - captured eight members of the League of the Righteous (Asaib Ahl al Haq) during two operations in Baghdad's Adhamiyah and New Baghdad districts early Sunday morning. Six Hezbollah Brigades operatives were captured during two operations inside Adhamiyah.
Raids targeting the two Iranian-backed terror groups have been infrequent during the month of November. Only two other Hezbollah Brigades fighters were captured during a Nov. 11 operation in Baghdad. Twenty-eight Hezbollah Brigades operatives were captured during multiple raids in October.

With fewer and fewer al Qaeda in Iraq leaders left to hunt down, the Task Force 88 teams have been freed up to concentrate more on these Iranian-backed groups like the League of the Righeous and the Hezbollah Brigades. Do yourself a favor and read the entire article from The Long War Journal as it does an excellent job of detailing who and what these two groups are all about.

The concern about what this operation yielded is the fact that these jihadists were in Baghdad and that shows just how volatile the city can still be. When the Iraqi Army and the coalition forces cleared out Sadr City, it was hoped that it would end these pockets of terrorists in the Baghdad area but a number of these splinter groups either hid or came back and set up shop again.

At the same time, a number of bloggers have recognized Victory in Iraq Day just this past week and while I agree with that premise, I am not ready to make that call yet. And a big reason for that is what this operation just yielded. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been dismantled - their leaders have more or less been hunted down and killed and captured but the Iranian-backed groups still have a presence in the country and with their Iranian weaponry, they can still inflict some heavy casualties on U.S. troops. At the same time, al Qaeda in Iraq cells are still being somewhat effective in using female suicide bombers and roadside bombs. I'm just being cautious - I don't feel it is good to declare this victory in Iraq only to see an attack take out a large number of casualties and I see that possibility as still being there.


US forces capture 14 Iraqi Shia terrorists in Baghdad

The League of the Righteous is splinter groups that broke away from Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army after Sadr announced he would disband the Mahdi Army and form a small, secretive military arm to fight Coalition forces in June. Sadr's moves caused shockwaves in the Mahdi Army, as some of the militia's leaders wished to continue the fight against US forces in Baghdad and in southern and central Iraq.
The League of the Righteous receives funding, training, weapons, and direction from Iran's Qods Force, the country's secretive special operations group that backs terror groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah. The League of the Righteous conducts attacks with the deadly, armor-piercing explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, as well as the more conventional roads bombs.
The size of the League of the Righteous is unknown, but hundreds of members of the group were killed, captured, or fled to Iran during the Iraqi government offensive against the Mahdi Army from March to July of this year, according to the US military.
Sadr is looking to pull the rank and file of the League back into the fold of the Sadr's political movement. In a recent message issued by Sadr where he rejected the US-Iraqi security agreement, he said he "extends his hand to the mujahideen in the so-called Asaib but not their leaderships who have been distracted by politics and mortal life from the [two late] Sadrs and the interests of Iraq and Iraqis."
The Hezbollah Brigades or the Kata'ib Hezbollah, has been active for more than a year and has increased its profile by conducting attacks against US and Iraqi forces using the deadly explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, and improvised rocket-assisted mortars, which have been described as flying improvised explosive devices. The Hezbollah Brigades has posted videos of these attacks on the Internet.
The terror group is an offshoot of Iranian-trained Special Groups, the US military said last summer. Hezbollah Brigades receives funding, training, logistics, guidance, and material support from Iran's Qods Force.

No comments: