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| Iraq |
| US reports progress against insurgency |
| 2005-09-23 |
| U.S.-Iraqi military operations over the past two months have made it harder for foreign insurgents to enter Iraq or establish safe havens in the Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch also said that while cities such as Baghdad and Ramadi average more than 25 attacks by insurgents a day, such violence is declining in the rest of Iraq - where 60 percent of the population lives. "There are indeed areas of Iraq that are relatively safe and secure, and the people in those provinces are working their way toward to a peaceful and democratic society," Lynch told reporters in the Green Zone, the highly fortified home of the U.S. Embassy and Iraq's parliament in Baghdad. He also said the U.S.-led coalition was making progress in killing or capturing insurgent leaders and is getting tips from Iraqi civilians about insurgent hideouts and weapons stockpiles. Lynch said information is even coming from the troubled Sunni Triangle, which includes the large provinces of Baghdad, Nineveh, Anbar and Salahuddin in central and northwestern Iraq. He said that based on a tip, U.S. and Iraqi officials destroyed buildings in Haditha, a city in Anbar where insurgents were making and hiding weapons. Coalition offensives like the one in the northern city of Tal Afar this month have made significant progress in restoring Iraq's control over its borders, and are "denying the terrorists any safe havens in Iraq," Lynch said. However, after insurgents were routed from Tal Afar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Sunni Arab leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, declared all-out war on Iraq's majority Shiites. Lynch said Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Sudan are the main sources of foreign fighters for the insurgency, with most coming from Syria. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |