Posted by: McQ on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Very interesting conversation on Blogger's Round Table with COL Terry R. Ferrell, Cdr of the 2nd BCT, 3rd ID about a battle that took place Monday, November 12th. The place was Adwaniyah, which is a village south of Baghdad and formerly (pre-surge) an AQI stronghold. With the surge, AQI was pushed out and, obviously, found that not to their liking. So they planned and mounted an attack. But there had been a change in Adwaniya. The week before, a "Concerned Local Citizens" group had been formed and the CLCs were manning checkpoints around the village. The attack on 3 of those checkpoints began at 0930 that morning with mortar fire on the southern checkpoint and direct fire on 2 other checkpoints to the north. The attack was carried out by 30 to 45 AQI using a combination of small arms fire and trucks mounted with DSHKA 12.7 mm (similar to our .50 cal machine gun) machine guns. The attempt, it is felt, was to deal a "death blow" to the newly formed CLC program. It didn't work out that way. An Iraqi Army unit immediately moved to the northern checkpoint and helped the CLC there engage AQI. A US element in the town also took AQI under fire. The battle lasted 4 hours and saw the eventual use of US indirect fire, attack aviation and AF assets. The result, 15 AQI killed with the loss of 4 CLC and the attack completely repulsed (as well as the destruction of the truck mounted AQI assets). Pretty impressive and a statement of the courage and willingness of the local Iraqis to defend their homes. Asked if the central government was becoming more responsive, COL Ferrell said that their support has been key to standing up the CLC program and is also being seen in other ways such as infrastructure repair and aid to the mostly rural farming area in which Adawniya is located. |
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