Over the last month, officials said that under Operation Law Enforcement
more than 100 Al Qaida operatives were killed or captured in the Baghdad
area. They said the detained operatives included aides in the Al Qaida
leadership.
"Violence directed at Iraqi civilians has dropped by about a third of
the averages before mid-February," said Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy
director for regional operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Murders and
executions against civilians, referred to as extrajudicial killings, have
decreased significantly, somewhere in the area of about a 50 percent
decrease."
"However, high-profile attacks — car bombs, suicide attacks, most
typically conducted by Sunni extremist groups against Shi'a targets —
continue," Barbero told a Pentagon briefing on March 20. "However, the
effectiveness of these high-profile attacks has dropped."
[On Thursday, the U.S. military announced the capture of the leaders of
a Mahdi Army faction that abducted and killed five U.S. soldiers. A U.S.
military statement said the Shi'ite militia leaders were arrested in Basra
and Hila, south of Baghdad.]
Officials said Iraqi and U.S. forces have been operating in all Baghdad
neighborhoods, including Sadr City. They said the operations against Al
Qaida and Shi'ite death squads, enhanced by unprecedented cooperation from
Iraqi residents, have led to the return of hundreds of Sunni and Shi'ite
families to their homes in Baghdad.
In a briefing to Arab journalists, Clark said Operation Law Enforcement
was designed to learn from the U.S. invasion of Faluja in 2004. The officer
said the operation to destroy Al Qaida failed because U.S. and coalition
forces did not remain in Faluja.
"The American forces benefited from the Faluja lesson two years ago,"
Clark said. "We went there for the purpose of destroying the Al Qaida
presence, conducted house-to-house searches and found weapons, money and
ammunition. But we did not leave behind forces to secure the city, which
allowed suspicious elements to return."
Clark said Al Qaida network commander Abu Ayoub Al Masri was still in
Iraq. He dismissed reports that Al Masri fled Iraq for Egypt, where he was
detained.
Officials said Al Qaida insurgents have been captured primarily in Anbar
and Baghdad. On March 20, Iraqi police conducted a major operation in the
Anbar capital of Ramadi and detained more than 45 suspected Al Qaida agents
and captured weapons.
"The sons of Ramadi work tirelessly to eradicate criminals and bring
them to justice," Ramadi police chief Brig. Gen. Khalil Ibrahim Hamadi said.
"Today, we achieved a noble goal in providing security and stability to our
families and to the people of Ramadi."
