Operation Iron Harvest targets al Qaeda in Miqdadiyah

Bil Roggio reports for The Long War Journal that Operation Iron Harvest, part of the corps-level operation Phantom Pheonix, is being conducted by MND-N.

Coalition and Iraqi security forces have launched Operation Iron Harvest, the latest offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq in Diyala province. "Operations are now being concentrated in Miqdadiyah," according to a press release from Multinational Division Iraq.

Mr Roggio continues,

Over two brigades of US forces along with an unspecified number of Iraqi troops are involved in the Miqdadiyah operation. "Seven American battalions, accompanied by Iraqi Army units, pushed into a 110-square-mile area in the fertile northern Diyala River Valley in search of 200 insurgents with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," The New York Times reported. (emphasis added)

According to MNF-I.

Both Iron Harvest and Phantom Phoenix "are seeing less resistance than expected," Multinational Forces Iraq reported. "There are expectations that the decrease in resistance can be due to leaks in the [Iraqi security forces] or extremists might have seen an increase in helicopters in their areas prior to the operation." US and Iraqi forces have killed or captured over 20 al Qaeda emirs during the first two days of the operation. (emphasis added)

While I know that these are round numbers, they are significant for a few reasons.

1. Diyala still maintains the largest concentration of Al Qaeda in Iraq forces according to MNF-I. This fact is noted by a powerpoint MNF-I released which shows the concentration and locations of remaining elements of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

2. They have specific intel that points to 200-ish extremist in Diyala River Valley. Let's double this number for Salad ah Din province and put also this number remaining in small pockets in the rest of Iraq and we have at most 600-ish Al Qaeda in Iraq left in Iraq. This is a sharp increase from on time projections of 20,000.

3. Out of the 200-ish extremists in Diyala province, 20 Al Qaeda emirs were captured in the first two days. This means at least 1/30th of the remaining Al Qaeda are high level leaders. Also given the fact that most emirs have a substantual munber of body guards and below emirs are cell leaders, who have a significant, but smaller contingent of body guards, one has to ask, who is left to fight?

4. Finally, obviously Coalition forces have substantial intel on Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders if in the first two days they captured 20 emirs. Emirs usually lead provinces or large cities. For example, one emir captured recently was the emir of Senjar province who was captured in Western Mosul. Mosul has typically had two emirs, one for the western side, one for the eastern side. Either way, Al Qaeda has suffered a significant blow to its emirs in the first two days of Operation Phantom Pheonix.