DAY 113 / MAR 22

Day 113 / Mar 22

 

The other day, anywhere between 100-200 insurgents attack a jail in the town of Muqdadiyah.  Their attack was well coordinated and had a purpose behind it – to free the insurgents held in the jail.   The level of planning and execution was very high, especially for a group of people who we keep saying can't do things like this.  They managed to free about 30 prisoners and suffered only light casualties and even killed more Iraqi police than they lost themselves.   The Iraqi police ran out of ammo.  The insurgents set up car bombs to block any incoming assistance and escaped relatively unharmed.  

 

Then a couple days later, they attempted another attack on a jail near Baghdad.  This time they weren't so successful.   The attackers failed to break anyone out of the jail and the Iraqis actually captured about 50 of the bad guys.

 

Clearly, the insurgents are not only acting in very small groups of 5-10 and have the capability to mass forces over 100.   This doesn't seem like the scattered groups of insurgents that we keep hearing that we are fighting.  These people are becoming actual fighters with command and control, planning, and the ability to carry out sophisticated attacks.

 

However, all was still quiet here, so I can't complain.