Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Sword and Shield

I've put together some resources for readers who want to follow the campaign along the Euphrates River leading to the Syrian border. To begin with, many of the town names (such as Sa'dah) are obscure and not clearly marked on normal atlases or maps. And newspapers have a maddening habit of saying 'a town near the border' without giving the reader any spatial concept of the operations as they relate to one another. Fortunately, there's a site called www.fallingrain.com which supplies weather and coordinates for pretty much every town you can think of. Using this site you can find the locations of the following towns commonly mentioned as part of the border battle.

 

In decimal degrees

Town Latitude Longitude
Qusabayah 34.3928 40.9869
Karabilah 34.3836 41.0308
Sa'dah 34.3717 41.0886
Al Qaim 34.3669 41.1389

 

To make it easy for the reader, I've plotted the towns along a Keyhole map, as shown below. These towns are spaced about 4 km apart and located within the populated river valley leading to the Syrian border.

 

A sense of the terrain can be obtained from old Soviet topographic maps, available from the University of California collection. I've cropped out a section of the topographic maps corresponding to the Keyhole map above. Each of the grid squares is approximately 4 km on a side. Although the area is flat (there are sometimes only one or two 20 meter contour lines in 4 km) there's a noticeable cliff to the north of Qusabayah and a smaller bluff to the immediate south of Sa'dah. By and large, however, the areas to the north and south of the river valley are bereft of cover.

 

With that topographic background, one can read Anna Badhkens account in the San Francisco Chronicle with a little more understanding. 

After swiftly moving house-to-house the previous day through the deserted town of Sada, one of four towns on the border with Syria controlled by foreign fighters linked to al Qaeda, the Marines barely made it 100 yards into the next nearest city of Karabila at sunrise on Sunday when snipers opened fire and insurgents launched mortars and rockets at their positions.

Although there have been very few public descriptions of US dispositions and detailed accounts of enemy movements, it is reasonable to guess from the topography that American forces operate parallel to the river valley in the flat areas to the north and south, while the insurgents maneuver along the populated belt where they can shelter in the houses. Badhkens goes on to say "by nightfall, the sweep had moved less than a mile west of Karabila's eastern edge". This is a description of how the relatively small number of American forces (in comparison to the huge operational area) have the ability to hop from one part of the river valley to the other, probably by going outside then in. They are able, for example, to move very rapidly from Sa'dah to Karabilah 4 kilometers away and only have to slow down when they must actually clear houses, in this case attacking in the westerly direction. As for the insurgents, Badhkens hints at how they maneuver -- moving away from American pressure westward, like a cut rubber band curling away from the flame.

... the fighters ... had threatened to blow up his house if he refused to let them use the field. He said they stayed for several minutes and pushed west, on foot. ... A woman next door said the fighters came through her house, as well, asking for a place to hide from U.S. helicopter gunships. The woman, Leila Zida, said she refused to let the fighters stay, and they continued their journey ... At the house next door, taxi driver Saleh Fayad said he saw the four men walk west, in the direction of the town water treatment plant, and saw four others follow them in a black Chevrolet Caprice.

According the Marine press releases, the operations in Sa'dah and environs are "part of an overall operation called Sayaid (Hunter), which is intended to deny Al Qaeda in Iraq the ability to operate freely in the Euphrates River Valley". Therefore we would expect to observe US forces cutting the Euphrates river line in other places and pushing the insurgents along the valley in the manner of a man slicing a sausage. And that is actually what seems to be happening. Hard on the heels of Iron Fist comes Operation River Gate. (hat tip: Bill Roggio)

Marines launch Operation Bawwabatu Annaher (River Gate) Oct 4, 2005

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq -- The 2nd Marine Division today launched Operation Bawwabatu Annaher (River Gate) in the cities of Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwana. Approximately 2,500 Marines, Soldiers and Sailors from Regimental Combat Team – 2 and Iraqi Security Force soldiers are participating in the operation, making it the largest operation in the Al Anbar province this year. The operation’s goal is to deny Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) the ability to operate in the three Euphrates River Valley cities and to free the local citizens from the insurgents’ campaign of murder and intimidation of innocent women, children and men.

The objectives of the River Gate are the cities of Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwana, whose location is plotted on the map below. As can be readily seen from the map, this operation is conceptually pushing the insurgents east from Haditha. It is no coincidence that the new American logistics base of Rawah is located in the middle of these two offensives, supporting the push in two opposite directions, essentially cutting the Euphrates river line like a sausage.

 

Interestingly, the code name "River Gate" calls to mind Squeeze Play, the last Belmont Club post, which observed the existence of the "inner border" between the Type I desert and Type II riverine terrain and how it would be desirable to establish Iraqi government control up to the "inner border" while mobile American forces broke up the insurgency's lines of communications in the Type I desert. It may only be coincidental that the operation in the Type II Haditha area is called "River Gate", while the operations in Qaim, Sa'dah and Qusabayah in the Type I terrain are a component of a larger operational concept called Sayaid (Hunter).

Update

A reader sends this image from NASA's World Wind program which shows the Syrian border looking north. Although the letters are too small to show in this picture (to keep the bandwidth down), the foreground is the river valley centered on Qusabayah. The exaggerated terrain feature in the far distance is the Jabal Sinjar at whose right foot lies the city of Mosul.

29 Comments:

Blogger Boghie said...

Me thinks I can hear the Fat Lady warming up....

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

O Bla Di, O Bla Da

10/04/2005 08:09:00 AM  
Blogger Karridine said...

The Quran calls this Day, "The day when We shall roll up the heavens like a scroll!"

The Muslim leaders are astounded, lost, and bereft of discernment to see the source of their loss of respect, power and UNITY.

Americans successfully freeing their former subjects from the mental enslavement of years of clerical abuse is a symptom, NOT a cause, of their disempowerment!

10/04/2005 08:13:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

I think the last hope left to the insurgency is to bring about some awful, demoralizing attack that sets back the growing sense of inevitability. Perception of progress is the only game in town, now. Actual progress has just been sold to the highest bidder.

10/04/2005 08:22:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Ms Badkhen describes the Marines searching house to house occasionally finding cached weapons and IED’s. Some descriptions sound like a crime scene investigation as homes are “scoured” for clues. The teenage girl twists her hair and asserts in a lie only a teenager can assemble that all is well and no depravity is being rendered here.

The Marines resolutely scoop and sieve out the contents of cities, the larger logistical items being hastily abandoned. Pieces are grabbed as the nomad without a camel humps his only belongings onto little Bethlehem after Bethlehem seeking shelter, food, and a human shield against the relentless onslaught of military might dealt out by the Multi-National-Forces. May their travails soon end.

10/04/2005 08:36:00 AM  
Blogger Jeff Kouba said...

There is a definite sense of momentum here, especially with the Iraqi forces starting to perform in this area. It will be interesting to see how the Iraqi 7th Army Division performs their permanent security duties.

10/04/2005 08:48:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Heard a report this morning that Iron Fist had no Iraqi forces in it. The mobility aspect may explain that
Aristides: I agree, but the real last hope of the terrorists in Iraq is the same as their first real hope - that the Cindy Shehans, Michale Moores and their allies in politics and the press will convince Americans that the victory being won so brillantly either does not exist or is Phyriic in nature.

10/04/2005 08:50:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

rwe:

Much like what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in twenty years we will all look back and speak of the inevitability of our victory in Iraq.

Those who will speak the loudest of inevitable victory will be those who today claim we have already failed.

10/04/2005 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Does anyone else find this amazing?

A woman next door said the fighters came through her house, as well, asking for a place to hide from U.S. helicopter gunships. The woman, Leila Zida, said she refused to let the fighters stay, and they continued their journey ...

Lends a new dimension to "just say no".

10/04/2005 09:30:00 AM  
Blogger Red River said...

Wretchard,

I am reading Hackworth's book "Steel My Soldier's Hearts." - lots of good information in there about tactics and operational goals. Pushing firebases out and hard patrolling.

10/04/2005 09:53:00 AM  
Blogger Glen said...

Thanks for battle coordinates. You're right about maddening... gheesh, you'd think the writers never gave directions to anyone before.

Let me add a pitch for Google Earth, too. (I'm not a stock owner or employee)...

10/04/2005 10:39:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

aristides: After the collapse of the USSR, the Left responded by saying "See! We told you so! Nothing to worry about!"
Which is rather like arriving at the site of the battle of Midway a few days after the fighting was over and saying "Japanese carriers? What Japanese carriers? I hear the Yorktown was sunk by a submarine. What did we need all those expensive airplanes for?"
After Desert Storm the Left was saying how mean we were to whump the poor Iraqis so badly, and the Highway of Death was something to for us to be ashamed up. A few years later the conventional wisdom was that if the Highway of Death had extended all the way from Kuwaitt until the Turkish border, then everything would have turned out much better.
Situational ethics makes you so wonderfully flexible.

10/04/2005 01:03:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Excellent point, RWE!

10/04/2005 01:47:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Building on RWE's point of how our enemies are seen to be just imaginary shapes in the mist of the past:

Just as this war is "illegal" because Saddam obviously posed no threat to the invulnerable bully US. This makes perfect sense, especially in these early years after 9/11. We learned that day that it would take a mighty modern nation, or at least 19 trained men, to do any damage to US.

If Saddam with his history was "no threat," what was Osama and the Taliban? And still, the Left argues that right after 9/11 was the perfect time to sit back, think good thoughts and hope for the best.

10/04/2005 02:35:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

If you go over to Bill Roggio and look at the photos of the stuff they dug up in Ramadi it suggests the enemy is hurting pretty badly. The cached weapons look like they've been buried for some time and are in very poor condition. A little longer and you'd have to cannibalize them for explosive.

10/04/2005 04:30:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

wretchard
If you would drop one of those pictured mortar rounds down a tube, you're braver than I am.

Seems to me that they are already to the cannibalize for explosive stage. But then I was never a mortar man, nor suicidal.

10/04/2005 04:57:00 PM  
Blogger PresbyPoet said...

Cederford,
Congrats on almost making sense, do you have a list of the 60? Serious danger only about 10. Iraq still was strategic move, knowing Iran is likely eventual target, #1 danger. You need bases in Iraq, to be able to even threaten Iran. Those Armored divisions are not easily transportable by sea, as we noted.
At the moment we are still at the mop up Iraq, give Iran it's final offer. It's only 11:45. High Noon is coming. Once the election passes, it will dawn on the Sunni their only hope of survival is for us to stay and make S & K continue to play by our rules.

Otherwise, if American withdraws, its not civil war, but slaughter. There is enough revenge loaded to depopulate the Sunni, and no one will care. America can't be blamed, so the MSM would treat it like Rwanda if we're gone.

Iran can't be permitted to get nukes with the mullahs in control. Not unless you want to encourage the third conjecture. That way lies madness and death beyond imagination.

100,000,000 dead is 10,000 times bigger than the 10,000 imagined for New Orleans. Can you imagine 100,000 Katrinas? If Iran gets nukes, the chance they may try to use them on Israel, and Israel respond with a Samson response is too great to permit. 100,000,000 may be low, in worst case. Without middle east oil, much of the world starves.

We need to remember what the stakes are here. This isn't about who wins in 2008, it is the survival of a big hunk of the world. Even if there is only a 1% chance of this doomsday scenario, it's a million lives.

That is why we are in Iraq.

10/04/2005 05:18:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The Iraqi Army is not going any where. They will be staying on in Iraq, forever.

Iran will continue with it's Nuke program. The UN will be ineffectual, as per normal. The US is in no position to stop Iran, politically or militarily. We will not be starting another preemptive ground war in the Middle East. Bush & Company tried to get Authorization for a Regional War when they first floated the Authorization for Use of Force in Iraq. The language was withdrawn from the bill, quickly. There was NO support in Congress for it in '02, there is none now.

The blowback from a less than devasting air strikes to Iran is to dangerous, while the blowback from decisive strikes would be even more dangerous.

The risks to Israel are Israeli risks not US. Israel, like Iraq, is not the 51st state, either. Risks to Israel are no reason for US action.
The Chinese have hundreds of nuclear warheads and believe that they could survive a MAD exchange with the US. We do business with them on a MASSIVE scale. We, or our proxies, should do so with Iran, as well.
Then there is Pakistan, the World's greatest nuclear proliferator, no talk of preemption there.

Why not Osama?

10/04/2005 05:42:00 PM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

UN election monitoring team finds unacceptable the electoral law change that would make the draft constitution harder to defeat
October 4, 2005, 9:42 PM (GMT+02:00)
The draft is up for referendum on Oct. 15 with little chance of acceptance when a two-third majority in 3 provinces is enough for a defeat. Shiite and Kurdish MPs have changed the rules so that the two-third majority is counted among eligible voters instead of the actual ballots cast. Sunni Muslims angrily reject the change as manipulative. They are supported by the UN electoral team.

10/04/2005 06:08:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

buffy -- can you imagine Hilary in a burkha and a veil?

10/04/2005 06:34:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Porker

Ahh, the rule of the majority, the Sunnis don't like that at all.

Even so, I have been led to believe, through quite a bit of reading, that the Sunnis do not have 2/3rd majorities in three provinces, even without the "new" interpretation of the Law. They can, if they vote in Bloc, garner 2/3 in Anbar and majorities in 2 other provinces. But not 2/3rds in three. The writers I've read could be wrong, but I doubt it.
We will know for sure in eleven days.

10/04/2005 06:34:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I guess it may or may not be a good thing that the UN does not rule Iraq.
The Iraqis do. If 80% agree, well that is a "Super Majority", even in the US.
The Sunni may well be left on the outside, lookin in.
It has been a long time coming.
The Sunni will be a long time gone.

As the President of Iraq says
Thanks for helping in their Civil War.

10/04/2005 06:42:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

And we have not even begun to discuss voter fraud, lost ballots and other assorted election tricks.

Kurds moving into Mosul
Shorten voter registration periods
Lack of open polling places for Sunni voters
Any number of big city political machine manipulations from the US past, or Ukranian present.

10/04/2005 06:52:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

If in the US elections can be "Stolen", why would they not be in Iraq?

10/04/2005 06:54:00 PM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

C4: Some argue that invading Iran and Syria - according to the original Likud Party Plan - is urgent and imperative.

What is this “original Likud Party Plan” you speak of? Well? The Likud, which originally got it’s support from Sephardim (these Jews who were thrown out of the Arab world to which you claim actually have the closest DNA compared to the Palestinians) thier orginial plan was to settle greater historic israel based on the British Mandate of Palestine (the British Mandate was for a JEWISH STATE on both the west and east banks) Under Likud leadership Camp David Accords were reached and 90% of all disputed lands were RETURNED to Egypt. Under other LIKUD leaders MORE lands were given back to the Arab populations (now calling themselves palestinians) Including GAZA under Sharon. Now if you claim that the LIKUD somehow has a plan to invade Iran and Syria, please share or shut up....

C4 continues to spin: But that is politically impossible in America until Congress is willing to renew the Draft and fund it by substantially increasing taxes. And for now, not even Australia or Britain would support an attack on either Syria or Iran,

Who says a direct attack is needed? more than one way to skin a cat... how about we isolate iran and syria? How about we let the Europeans get into the discussions and become pissed at the iranians about the nukes? How about we get france to sponsor UN Security Council Resolutions to GET Syria out of Lebanon? How about we dry up the drug trade from Syrian contol? How about we squeeze Syria out of the money laundering and conterfeiting business? All of these do not require one american human sacrifice (as you so colorfully write)

and finally C4 spits: and our "special friend" Israel is unusable, as a global pariah, from openly being with us in the field in any conflict..

Actually great point that “israel” is unusable... funny were the 10,000 egyptians that we paid 12 BILLION dollars to sit in the dessert in Gulf War 1 “Usable”? naw, i didnt think so... Israel is quite usable, just not admitted to since we suck on the oil tit... but a funny thing happened on the way to the jew lynching... Israel has never had as many public open diplomatic relations with more nations than it has now at this time... Arab & Islamic governments are lining up to do business with so called “pariah” If you only count what Iran, north korea & arab league say, you’d say pariah, but as these islamic radical splodey-dopes are murdering across the world, the world is actually apologizing to Israel and asking for help... C4 your still living in a pre-arafat haze... newsflash, arafat is dead, gaza is free! (free to murder one another) and the world is getting tired of your jew hating friends turning their human propane walking and talking bombs loose on thier capitals... Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and more.... even the islamic world is begging for JEW ASSIST! C4, I know your father was hurt in at Auchwitz falling from a guard tower, but it aint the Jooows fault... It’s the german watch tower builders guild (they havent let Joows into that since Luther humped his 1st nun)

10/04/2005 07:37:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Two out of three ain't bad, Cedar:

it had oil and a nice strategic position

10/04/2005 07:50:00 PM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

c4 :

Is it America's job to safeguard a "Jews-only allowed" piece of land?


what piece of land is "jew only"

Please explain, since Israel is 25% muslim or are you just blind?

c4: We cound ask the Jews in combat positions in America's Armed Forces if they weren't scarcer than Arabs in the US Armed Forces.

So there are fewer jews than arabs in the USA armed forces, what does that mean? nothing.. very useless point you make...again...

10/05/2005 05:06:00 AM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

c4: Protestants are nun-humpers, Pork for Jews?

Martin Luther was, learn history

10/05/2005 05:06:00 AM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

c4: Pork Rinds for Yahweh continues his efforts to show pogroms weren't a total mistake:

ah yes, you do like genocide for jews dont you?

10/05/2005 05:08:00 AM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

c4: Anyone who places America before Israel must have had ancestors with guards at Auchwitz?

no, anyone who advocates the mass murder of jews, as you does, must have...


c4: Arabs are begging for JEW ASSIST?

All in your pathetic dreams.

Morrocco, Quatar, Jordan to start, not to mention islamic countries like pakistan, no the world is turning against you c4, go on, move to idaho and get your bunker ready....

c4: Muslims are barbaric, but they are all more truthful and honest than Zionists, though that's not saying much.

yes we have all heard your rants before, all jews/zionists are liars... when you go to church on sunday, remember jesus was a zionist...

10/05/2005 05:12:00 AM  

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