AQI under pressure in Diyala province

MUQDADIYA, Iraq, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida terrorists attempting to reinfiltrate central portions of volatile Diyala province from hideouts along its northern and eastern fringes apparently are finding an increasingly inhospitable landscape from which to operate, according to U.S. military officials.

The Iraqi army, with American troop support, is continuing Operation Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), an offensive launched at the end of July by as many as 50,000 soldiers and special Emergency Response Police units to sweep cities, towns and villages to root out al-Qaida in Iraq cells and other extremist gunmen in what has long been a major transit route for terrorists to enter and leave Baghdad.

Local police, meanwhile, stage raids in their jurisdictions to round up extremist suspects. They do so with warrants issued by the courts after citizens have filed formal, corroborated and sworn complaints with government prosecutors, something unheard of just a few months ago.

"There are pockets in Diyala where there are some insurgent groups that are able to operate or some militia groups that are capable of operating, but not with a whole lot of freedom and not with much reach," said Lt. Col. Rod Coffey, commander of the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. "Their position has really been undermined.

"You really don't see AQI attacking people of any stripe in this sector anymore. But we do see some organizing, some recruiting effort, but it (AQI) certainly doesn't have any strength here."

Coffey's troops are based near Muqdadiya, a market town north of the provincial capital of Baquba. Baquba was the capital of AQI's self-proclaimed Islamic State; Muqdadiya and the nearby agricultural region known as the "bread basket" was its headquarters for training and storing weapons. Successive U.S. military operations late last year and early this year drove senior AQI leaders and many cadres out of the Muqdadiya and bread basket areas north toward Mosul in Nineva province and also east over the Hamrin ridge to the more desolate and sparsely populated sectors next to the Iranian border.

It's from the border area that AQI operatives are trying to reinfiltrate the Muqdadiya area to visit close family or start new cells.

"The low-level players who have ties to the area are starting to come back in ones or twos," said 1st Lt. Steve Saxion, a platoon leader with 3/2. "They don't have a lot of time to stick around. Normally if they cross back, they're around for about a week before we get them."

U.S. detentions of AQI and other extremists number between seven and 10 per week, according to Coffey. Iraqi detentions are much higher. According to available figures, at least 1,600 suspected terrorists have been rolled up by Iraqi Security Forces in Diyala province since the end of July.

In a small, concrete cell of the police headquarters in the town of Dali Abbas recently sat two men accused in warrants of being members of an AQI kidnap and murder squad. Iraqi Police Col. Mahmoud Tayeh Mahmoud said the two were grabbed after they slipped back into the area to see their families. Both had been active in the Dali Abbas area during 2006-2007 sectarian battles and had warrants out for their arrests.

In August, he said, his station -- working with Iraqi Security Forces -- arrested eight al-Qaida suspects who were believed to be trying to organize a new cell.

"They are not very active now, but we have to continue to have operations everywhere," he said.

The number of al-Qaida in Diyala province at any one time is not known. Many are believed to have fled north to the area of Mosul, one of the last urban redoubts of AQI; others are believed to have slipped across the Iranian border, where they are said to have sanctuaries.

The figures put forward by Coffey and Lt. Col. Douglas Sims II, deputy commander of the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, for hard-core Iraqi AQI cadre is 50 to 60. The number of foreign fighters could be about half that number.

Iraqi army operations in Diyala province are being conducted by elements of the 5th Iraqi Army Division, which fought Shiite gunmen in the southern city of Basra in the spring and later took control of northern Sadr City in Baghdad.