Bill Roggio brings up the fact that the recent attack on a Marine Base by the terrorists that failed miserably
In the Al Qa?im region Oct. 16, an estimated 12 insurgents were killed in a failed attack against Marines at Camp Gannon located in the town of Husaybah, 3.6 kilometers from the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Marines responded to the attack with machine-gun fire, mortars and more than 30 rounds from 40mm grenade launchers. There were no Marine casualties reported.
Is just another sign that the terrorists either never learn from their mistakes or are just plain ignorant:
Last spring, al Qaeda unwisely assaulted Camp Gannon, the U.S. Marine outpost located in Husaybah on the Syrian border. While the attack was championed in the press as proof of the strength and staying power of al Qaeda, the terrorists suffered an awful defeat when attempting to attack the Marines en masse. Estimates put the enemy casualties anywhere from 35 to 85%, depending on the size of the assault force, stunning losses no matter which figure is used.
Yesterday, insurgents took another stab at Camp Gannon, with identical results as last spring. The attack was repelled and twelve insurgents are believed to have been killed, with zero Marine casualties. The bloody lesson of last spring has not filtered through the ranks, and the insurgency sacrifices its troops needlessly, much like the recently deceased terrorists in and around Ramadi yesterday.
[…]The attack on Camp Gannon should be viewed as an act of desperation by the insurgents, as Karabilah now sits between Camp Gannon in Husaybah and the outposts in and around Sa’dah. The insurgents must press to eject the Marines before their strength is consolidated and their ability to operate in the region diminishes.
Combined with Coalition attacks in Ramadi that killed over seventy insurgents, the enemy suffered over one hundred killed in action in the course of 24 hours. For an insurgency estimated in the tens of thousands, these casualties cannot be sustained indefinitely, particularly when significant numbers of the sympathetic Sunni population are considering entering the political process.
Coalition forces are cashing in on the efforts behind Operations Iron Fist and River Gate, as they have now set themselves up in a position to keep the insurgents and al Qaeda from operating in the open, thereby improving their intelligence capabilities and their ability to conduct offensive operations.
To hear the MSM tell it, everything is all wrong in Iraq. The Military has no plans and are just running around haphazardly….another Vietnam, blah blah blah.
The recent operations near the Syrian border are definately hurting these terrorists, and to prove the point Bill along with Steve Schippert and Marvin Hutchens put together a flash presentation:
The popular perception that the Coalition does not have a coherent military strategy to assist with defeating the insurgency is untrue. The plan is clear: interdict al Qaeda and the insurgency along their lines of supply: the ratlines along the Tigris and Euphrates River; strike at targets of opportunity when they appear (search and destroy missions); push al Qaeda and the insurgency?s bases of operations further west towards the Syrian border and occupy the cities and towns along the river with Coalition forces, while handing over responsibility to Iraqi Security Forces when they are prepared to handle the mission.
This is the Anbar Campaign.
The following presentation should help visualize the operations over the past year, and demonstrate the Coalition?s push westward. The cities and towns along the Euphrates will change from ?red? (hot spots where search and destroy operations are taking place) to ?blue? (locations where clear and hold operations were executed, and the Coalition left behind a force strong enough to hold the region). The involvement of the Iraqi Security Forces increases over time and are crucial to success.
The presentation makes it pretty clear that there is a whole lot going on over there to defeat the terrorists, not that we will hear about any of that in the MSM any time soon unless it involves a car bomb.
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