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Iraqi Islamic party says "Al Queda is defeated"

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:56:09 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Nov. 01 (News Report) - "Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated," according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been "defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically," referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group's tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad. They are being hunted down and killed. Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans. Colonel Ricky Gibbs, the American brigade commander with responsibility for the Rashid District in south Baghdad today told me, "So goes South Baghdad goes Baghdad." General Petraeus had told me similar things about the importance of South Baghdad. In fact, Rashid is quickly developing into what might be one of the final serious battlegrounds of the war.

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Beachamp and the rule of second chances

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:07:03 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Oct. 25 (News Report) - Some months ago, a soldier in Baghdad wrote a piece on the way war can degrade the morals and affect the judgment of combat soldiers. His story was published at face-value in The New Republic magazine. In it the soldier wrote terrible things about his unit, making the article sensational. ... Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

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Resistance is futile

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:22:10 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Oct. 22 (News Analysis) - No thinking person would look at last year's weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either "victim caught in the crossfire" or "referee between warring parties." Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public. Today I am in Iraq, back in a war of such strategic consequence that it will affect generations yet unborn--whether or not they want it to. Hiding under the covers will not work, because whether it is good news or bad, whether it is true or untrue, once information is widely circulated, it has such formidable inertia that public opinion seems impervious to the corrective balm of simple and clear facts. ... As I travel around the world, I see that even many of our close allies have a false impression of American soldiers as brutally oppressive towards people. Even our great friends in Singapore and the United Kingdom, and the pro-American people on the island of Bali, Indonesia, think we are savaging people. This loss of moral leadership will be costly to Americans on many fronts for many generations to come.

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Bread and a Circus, Part I of II

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 06:55:02 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - Jul. 31 (Opinion) - Before the Battle for Baqubah (Operation Arrowhead Ripper), thousands of refugees had streamed out of Baqubah and the surrounding towns. I've heard Iraqis throw around a number of 17,000 IDPs [Internally Displaced Iraqis], although I have no idea how accurate that is, if at all. Two weeks after the start of Arrowhead Ripper, 3-2 SBCT was tracking just over a thousand IDPs, and since I shared a tent with the soldiers who did most of the counting (C-52), I put stock in that number and believe it to be roughly accurate. I saw many of the IDPs with my own eyes.

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7 Rules: 1 Oath

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:07:11 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 19 (News Report) - Today Colonel Steve Townsend, the American commander of the 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, presided over a meeting with Iraqi Army officers and former insurgent leaders. The insurgent leaders who seem to be sincerely working toward peace are now collectively referred to as "the Baqubah Guardians." I was allowed to attend the meeting, but was--understandably--not permitted to photograph or videotape the proceedings.

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Bless the Beasts and Children, Part 2

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:56:19 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 18 (Interview) - This photo was taken just near the disinterred graves of Iraqi civilians murdered by al Qaeda. As this photo was made, Captain Baker's soldiers were still digging out the bodies nearby. The stench from the graves was horrific. The children had been decapitated. The term "al Qaeda" is used here, because Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians said al Qaeda had taken the village of al Hamira and done this. Most of al Qaeda in Iraq consists of Iraqis, not foreigners. Even the animals had been "murdered." I saw these things with my own eyes, recorded them with my video and still cameras, and provided the map coordinates and names of American and Iraqi officials. Media ignored this massacre until pressure mounted from home to report it.

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Al-Qaeda on the Run: Feasting on the Moveable Beast

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:43:08 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 11 (Opinion) - Abu Ali said that on 1 April 2007, he and his people attacked al Qaeda in Buhriz for their crimes against Islam. He also said something that many Muslims have said to me: al Qaeda are not Muslims. (Both Sunni and Shia have said nearly the exact same words, at times on video.) Abu Ali said they fought hard against al Qaeda, and on 10 April, they asked the Americans to join the attack. It worked.

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Baqubah Update

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:48:14 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 05 (Opinion) - The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the "al Ameriki tribe," or "tribe America."

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Update on "Bless the Beasts and the Children"

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:45:12 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 03 (News Report) - But for those publications who actually had people embedded in Baqubah when the story first broke and still failed to cover it, their malaise is inexplicable. I do not know why all failed to report the murders and booby-trapped village: apparently no reporters bothered to go out there, even though it's only about 3.5 miles from this base. Any one of the reporters currently in Baqubah could still go to these coordinates and follow his or her nose and find the gravesites.

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Bless the Beasts and Children

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 09:45:40 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jul. 01 (News Report) - On 29 June, American and Iraqi soldiers were again fighting side-by-side as soldiers from Charley Company 1-12 CAV, led by Captain Clayton Combs, and Iraqi soldiers from the 5th IA, closed in on a village on the outskirts of Baqubah. The village had the apparent misfortune of being located near a main road--about 3.5 miles from FOB Warhorse--that al Qaeda liked to bomb. Al Qaeda had taken over the village. As Iraqi and American soldiers moved in, they came under light contact; but the bombs planted in the roads, and maybe in the houses, were the real threat.

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Death or Glory Part III of IV

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:46:09 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jun. 13 (Special Report) - American soldiers think our press is bad to them, but we get off light compared to the Brits. One British soldier told me that when he made a journey of several hours across London, in uniform, not a single person acknowledged him. I said he should go to America where British soldiers are always welcome.

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Death or Glory Part II of IV

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 09:46:55 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Jun. 08 (News Report) - The intended target in an ambush never knows when it's over. Yesterday's ambush, which killed two soldiers and wounded three others, is a case in point. Once the Brits had dealt with the immediate aftermath of the ambush--setting up security, calling in air support, tending to the wounded and getting EOD in to deal with the remaining dozens of bombs--our convoy still had its mission objective. So we put the disabled vehicles in tow and continued our journey deeper into the desert.

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A Memorial Day Message

Sun, 27 May 2007 09:47:20 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - May. 27 (Opinion) - Memorial Day weekend is upon us. I am out here in Anbar Province with Task Force 2-7 Infantry. The area around Hit (pronounced "heat") is so quiet previous units likely would not recognize the still. There was a small IED incident this morning, and the explosion was a direct hit, but the bomb was so small that mechanics had the vehicle back in shape by late afternoon. Calm truly has fallen on this city.

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Dispatches From Iraq: Operation Rattlesnake

Mon, 07 May 2007 09:47:44 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - May. 07 (Special Report) - From a distance, it might appear that America's most trusted and steadfast ally is packing out in the face of a fraction of the violence which American soldiers face in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baqouba ...the list goes on. And British soldiers here do in fact look at their American counterparts with mixture of dismay and respect at the amount of abuse they take but still keep going. ... Adjusting war plans to meet changing realities is a far cry from "cutting and running." American military leaders are calling that same process "a surge."

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German Woman to rescue American Navy SEAL

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:06:01 -0700

Michael Yon: Online Magazine - By Michael Yon - Sep. 22 (Opinion) - About six weeks ago, Matt from Blackfive.net called about a Navy SEAL named Justin who had been diagnosed with leukemia. Justin's life likely could be saved with a bone marrow transplant, and with a giant database of willing donors, Justin's chances might have looked promising. Yet when Justin was tested, it turned out he carried an uncommon trait called the Philadelphia chromosome. Doctors said his chances of finding a match were about 1 in 25,000, and therefore his chances of survival were grim. That is... until groups like Soldiers Angels and Blackfive got involved and called for a blogstorm.

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