The Battle of the Belts (The Fourth Rail)

The British kicked off just hours before the Americans did. Now the hurt is being served up and the terrorists lock around Baghdad is being smashed. Finally! Good luck, guys!

The Battle of the Belts (The Fourth Rail): "”Major Operations” underway in the regions surrounding Baghdad

By DJ Elliott and Bill Roggio

Baghdad and the surrounding belts, click to view.

With the last U.S. combat brigade to hit the ground over the last two weeks as part of the surge, Multinational Forces Iraq has declared the beginning of “major combat operations” in the belts regions surrounding Baghdad. The Baghdad Belts, which included Eastern Anbar, northern Babil, and southern Salahadin and Diyala provinces, has long been a staging area for al Qaeda and insurgent operations into Baghdad, and a key part of the Baghdad Security Plan is denying these regions to the enemy.

In the June 16 briefing given by Defense Robert Gates, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, General Petraeus explained that the past four months have set the stage for the 'large, coordinated offensive operations' which kicked off over the weekend. The combat, logistics and intelligence pieces have been 'put in place over the past several months,' while a clear intelligence picture was developed of the regions surrounding Baghdad. 'We have been doing what we might call shaping operations in a lot of these different areas [in the belts], feeling the edges, conducting intelligence gathering, putting in special operators.'"