Operation Lightning
Underway
In Baghdad
By James Cogan
02 June 2005
World
Socialist Website
Operation
Lightningthe massive deployment of 50,000 US and Iraqi government
troops and police into the streets of Baghdadbegan on Sunday and
is unfolding amid a virtual media blackout and a complete absence of
critical commentary. What is taking place amounts to the re-invasion
of Iraqs capital aimed at terrorising the population and cracking
down on resistance groups that operate freely across large sections
of the city.
There is no doubt
that the operation was unveiled by the Iraqi government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari
on the direct orders of Washington. For two days in May, Jaafari was
involved in meetings with the top US commander in Iraq, General George
Casey, who reportedly lectured him on the need to respond with
strong and decisive action to the wave of bombings and killings
taking place across Iraq. The meetings with Casey were followed by a
visit to Iraq by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on May 15, where
further demands were placed on Jaafaris newly-installed administration.
The crackdown is
being justified with references to the 434 Iraqi civilians who were
killed and the 775 wounded in May, many in politically reactionary bombings
that made no attempt to distinguish between occupation targets and ordinary
people. The main Iraqi resistance groups condemn such bombings, which
are generally blamed on groups connected with Al Qaeda.
The concern of the
White House and the Pentagon, however, is the growing number of casualties
that guerilla attacks are inflicting on the occupation forces. The US
military lost 78 dead and more than 500 wounded in Maythe largest
number since January. The Iraqi security forces also suffered heavy
losses. At least 151 Iraqi police were killed and 325 woundedmore
than double the number in April. At least 85 Iraqi soldiers were killed
and 79 wounded.
The aim of Operation
Lightning is to try and curb the insurgency by cutting it off from its
support base among the broader population. The 50,000 troops in the
capital will throw up 675 permanent checkpoints at all entrances to
the city and at key intersections throughout the suburbs. The checkpoints
will be manned by soldiers of the US-created Iraqi Army. As they go
up, each of 22 sectors the city has been divided into will be subjected
to sweeps and house searches by Iraqi and US forces.
Riverbend,
an Iraqi woman in Baghdad, wrote in her blog on May 29: Its
difficult enough right now getting around Baghdad, more checkpoints
are going to make things trickier. The plan includes 40,000 Iraqi security
forces and that is making people a little bit uneasy. Iraqi National
Guard are not pleasant or upstanding citizensto have thousands
of them scattered about Baghdad stopping cars and possibly harassing
civilians is worrying. Were also very worried about the possibility
of raids on homes.
While little information
is available, it is clear that a massive sweep is already underway.
A spokesman for Jaafari claimed that over 500 arrests had
been carried out in just the first two days of the operation.
Highlighting the
indiscriminate character of the arrests, one of those detained was Mohsen
Abdel Hamid, the leader of the Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party who has
been engaged over in recent months in high-level discussions with Iraqi
government and US officials over joining the occupation regime. Pentagon
officials told the Los Angeles Times that US troops operating near Hamids
house obtained intelligence that insurgents were hiding
there.
In the early hours
of the morning, Hamids front door was broken down by an assault
squad. The Sunni leader, his sons and his bodyguards were hooded and
dragged off, and furniture throughout his house smashed apart. He was
rapidly released once word reached higher authorities and the US military
has declared the arrest was a mistake.
The hundreds of
others being detained on similar intelligence will not be
so fortunate. Thousands of Iraqis who have been caught up in US military
dragnets over the past two years have been held for three months or
more before being released.
In a telling indication
of just how little control the occupation forces actually have, the
operation is primarily focussed on securing the roads between the fortified
Green Zone compound on the western banks of the Tigris River with the
airport and Abu Ghraib prison in the western suburbs.
The Green Zone houses
the US military command and the Iraqi government, as well as the thousands
of contractors, journalists and others who have been drawn to the occupied
country. Vehicles travelling to and from the zone are under constant
threat of attack by insurgents or roadside bombs. As many as three bombs
per day are detonated just on the airport road.
Scattered reports
indicate that the scale of violence in Baghdad has dramatically escalated
since the offensive began. Heavy clashes took place on Sunday in the
suburb of Amariya, which borders the airport road. Some 50 insurgents
attacked a checkpoint and an interior ministry detention centre, killing
at least nine Iraqi government troops.
Iraqi police have
been killed by car bombs and snipers in the working class, predominantly
Sunni-populated district of Adhamiya, in Baghdads north-west.
The suburb has often been compared by journalists with the city of Fallujah,
in that it is one of the centres of the Iraqi resistance.
On Tuesday, insurgents
ambushed a convoy of the increasingly despised Iraqi police commandos,
many of whom were previously special forces troops under Saddam Husseins
regime and are now working with the US military. Three commandos were
killed.
Earlier in the week,
suicide bombers drove car bombs into military convoys, checkpoints and
the entrance to the Oil Ministry. Yesterday, a car bomb exploded at
the checkpoint on the airport road guarding the entrance to one of the
main US bases in western Baghdad. At least 15 people were wounded.
Elsewhere in the
country, insurgents are believed to have shot down a single-engine plane
carrying US special forces, killing four and an Iraqi. An Italian helicopter
has also been downed. All four Italian troops on board died in the crash.
Operation Lightning
underscores the venal character of the Shiite fundamentalist parties
that dominate Jaafaris governmentDaawa and the Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)and the leading Shiite
cleric Ali al-Sistani.
Organised as the
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the fundamentalists and Sistani claimed
that their victory in the January 31 elections would set in motion the
end to US occupation. The basis on which the UIA won the majority of
votes from Iraqi Shiites was a promise for a timetable for the withdrawal
of all foreign troops.
Instead, Jaafaris
administration is now functioning as the figure-head for a US-directed
reign of terror against Baghdads six million citizens, making
use of thousands of American troops as well as Iraqi paramilitary units
that were assembled by the US military from Saddam Husseins regimes
special forces and Republican Guard.