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Diyala province campaign
Part of the Post-invasion Iraq
File:Army.mil-2007-03-19-132938.jpg Soldiers take cover behind a Stryker vehicle during a firefight
Date December 25, 2006 - Location Diyala governorate, Iraq Result Ongoing
Belligerents
United States New Iraqi Army	Iraqi insurgents
Strength
4,200 (U.S. forces) 20,000 (Iraqi forces)	2,000
Casualties and losses
89 killed (U.S. forces), 251 killed (Iraqi security forces) 20 killed (U.S.-allied Iraqi militia)	630+ killed, 500 captured

The Diyala province campaign is a series of operations conducted by coalition forces against Iraqi insurgents and a number of bombing and guerrila attacks against the security forces in Diyala province of Iraq, with the purpose of control of the province.

Prelude

Shortly after the insurgent victory in Baghdad after Operation Together Forward insurgents began, little by little, moving their resources from Baghdad, now more than 70 percent under insurgent control, and Al Anbar provice, which is also almost completely under insurgent control, to the province of Diyala northeast of Baghdad. The first signs of increased insurgent activity in Diyala came after U.S. forces found an insurgent bunker complex near the village of Turki and fought a bloody battle. Also a few weeks later fighting between police and insurgents after an attack on Baquba's police headquarters shuts down the city, closing the university, schools and most stores, and clearing the streets of everyone, except a few who scurry about to stock up on food. At least 55 militants are killed in clashes in the preceding days, according to anonymous police sources. During the fighting a mass grave with 28 bodies was discovered. After that U.S. and Iraqi forces begin raids in the city. The morgue in the city reports by the beginning of December 2006 that it had received 102 bodies in the previous two weeks. After the announcement of a new attempt by the U.S. and Iraqi security forces to take back the streets of Baghdad the insurgents started to speed up their move and it is believed that the reason behind the little resistance found by the security forces in Baghdad during Operation Law and Order is that most of the insurgents have moved to Diyala.

The Campaign

Baquba falls

On Christmas Day it was reported that the capital of the province, Baquba, had fallen under insurgent control. An Iraqi news cameraman went to the city and reported seeing hundreds of gunmen with AK-47's in cars and pickups parading through the city. There was no sign of the security forces except for the bodies of a few executed by the insurgents. After that there were increased insurgent attacks on the U.S. and Iraqi forces around Baquba and in the rest of the province.

Mid-January U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted a series of raids that resulted in 93 insurgents killed and 57 captured. Despited this however the insurgents had some succeses early in the campaign, mainly, when they shot down a Black Hawk helicopter on January 20 killing twelve U.S. soldiers. The helicopter was carrying mostly officers from the U.S. National Guard. The dead inluded a colonel who was the top American military doctor in Iraq.

In January 2007, it was reported that Sunni insurgents were able to kidnap the mayor of Baquba and blow up his office, despite promises from American and Iraqi military officials that the situation in the city was "reassuring and under control". The city at its peak had over 300,000 residents, but a February 2007 report labeled the city a "ghost town" as most residents had fled.

Iraqi security forces under attack

In two separate incidents in the beginning of March, insurgents captured 32 members of the Iraqi security forces. The bodies of 14 captured policemen were found shortly after, and the 18 other soldiers and policemen were shown on television with a message that they would be executed. Suicide bombers continued to attack in Diyala, targeting not only military but also civilian targets such as a cafe in Balad Ruz, where 30 people were killed on March 7. The capture of policemen continued, with another 10 policemen captured and 1 killed when insurgents overran a police station in the town of Hibhib. The bodies of five of the policemen were found the next month. Also, 20 Iraqi soldiers and policemen were captured at the beginning of April and were executed several days later.

On March 23, the provincial director of civil defense, Colonel Ahmed Kadhim Jawad, was killed in Khalis.

Reinforcements arrive

On March 13, 700 men from the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, which includes Stryker armored vehicles, were sent from Baghdad to Diyala as reinforcements to the 3,500 U.S. and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers already in the province. The next day, as the first bach of the reinforcements was moving close to the outskirts of Baquba, the Stryker convoy was hit by machine-gun, RPG and mortar fire. In the ensuing chaos one American soldier was killed, 12 were wounded and two Stryker armored vehicles were destroyed. The same day, in two other separate incidents, two more American soldiers were killed in the province.

Attack on Qubah

On March 24, the U.S. military started operations to retake the Baqubah River valley, a string of farming hamlets nestled among dense palm groves. They started with attacking the insurgent-dominated village of Qubah. Up to 13 Chinooks, Blackhawks and Apache gunships lifted off from Forward Operating Base Warhorse. The helicopters barely touched the ground at the edge of Qubah long enough for 241 soldiers to leap out and heavy street fighting ensued as artillery fire provided cover firing into the surrounding palm groves. At the same time, a convoy of 19 Humvees, two Bradley tanks and several other vehicles rumbled toward Qubah from the opposite end. The U.S.troops encountered several machine gun nests in the town. One U.S. soldier took a burst of fire in the chest at virtually point-blank range that knocked him on his back. But his body armor saved him from serious injury, and a moment later he was up after emptying his own weapon into the gunmen while on his back. The Apaches circled the battle, occasionally strafing insurgent positions with cannons and sending Hellfire missiles whooshing into buildings soldiers were attacking from the ground. By sunset 16 insurgents were killed and 3 American soldiers were wounded in the initial clashes. But more fighting happened as the convoy tried to return to base. They were hit two times by roadside bombs. The Apaches identified the trigermen and killed up to 12 more insurgents. In one bomb blast 4 American soldiers were killed and 2 were wounded. By the close of the operation on March 24 only the town of Zaganiya was left as the last insurgent stronghold in the Baquba river valley.

Khalis massacre

On March 29, three suicide bombers in a coordinated attack on the mostly Shia town of Khalis killed 53 people and wounded 103. This coincided with a double suicide bombing in Baghdad on the Shaab area marketplace that killed 82 people, including many women and children, and wounded 138 others.

Diyala cut off, sectarian war intensifies

By early April it was reported that insurgents had taken control of the roads leading between Diyala and Baghdad. Large swaths of territory are in insurgent hands and the U.S. military is stretched pretty thin. Meanwhile sectarian warfare intensified in the province with a total of 62 bodies being recovered between April 3rd and 7th. Most of the sectarian killings is done in revenge because after the mass killings of Sunnis by Shiites in Baghdad a large number of Sunnis fled to seek refuge in Baquba. That contributed to the ranks of the Sunni insurgents and also brought a greater sens of hatred toward the Shiia population of Diyala. Also, even before the American military "surge" in Baghdad, the Shiia dominated military and police units in Diyala were conducting mass killings of Sunnis. Now, as Diyala has become a new safe haven for Sunni insurgents, like Al Anbar province which has already been overun by the insurgents, that has changed were the Sunnis are striking back at the Shiites. Also, because of the crackdown in Baghdad, many Shiite Mahdi Army units fled from the capital to Diyala were they also have taken up positions in the western parts of the province and are conducting attacks against American and Iraqi military targets.

5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment under fire

One of the American units that took on the most casualties during the campaign was the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. The squadron came to Iraq at the beginning of September 2006 with 330 men, but half-way through their deployment almost 100 men from the original roster had been killed or wounded, all in the province of Diyala. By April 23, the squadron lost 20 soldiers to hostile action in the province and more than 80 had been wounded. They took part in the bloody Battle of Turki before the campaign and had been constantly under hit-and-run attacks later on. With that the squadron became the only squadron of the U.S. Army to lose almost a third of its force in the Iraq war. By May 11, 2007 the U.S commander in Diyala Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said he needed more reinforcements, his current forces being unable to prevent further insurgent expansion and drive them from their stronghold of Baqubah. By mid-2007 the Islamic State of Iraq, already holding Baquba and most of the province under its control, declared its capital to be Baquba. By now there was already strong evidence that the Islamic State of Iraq had moved most of its command and control operations to Diyala.

=== Operation "Arrowhead Ripper" ===

In mid-June the U.S. mounted an offensive against Baghdad's northern and southern flanks. In the north an operation dubbed "Arrowhead Ripper" was started with air assaults under the cover of darkness in Baquba. Heavy street fighting lasted throughout the first day of the operation, mainly in the center of the city and around the main city market. On the first day of the operation 22 insurgents were killed. One U.S. soldier was also killed on the first day. The next week saw U.S. forces trying to take Baquba back from the insurgents but it was complicated with U.S. troops running into a maze of booby-traped houses. The attack on the city came from the west and it took the Americans a week before they secured 80 percent of the western section of the city because hundreds of booby-traps were laid by the insurgents some of them being whole houses that were riged to blow. Also the insurgents already had inteligence that the U.S. army was going to attack the city and evacuated up to 80 percent of it's principal leadership long before the operation.

References

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/world/middleeast/16insurgency.html?ex=1334376000&en=8e61c008a0e73db1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
2. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-07-10-iraq-tuesday_N.htm?csp=34
3. http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2006/12/reporting_under.html#posts
4. http://en.wikinews.org/Insurgents_now_control_Iraqi_city
5. http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/01/22/us_says_killed_93_qaeda_linked_fighters_in_iraq/
6. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2183852.ece
7. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21356925-1702,00.html
8. http://www.thestate.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/16962703.htm
9. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
10. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/15/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Under-Fire.php
11. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17631208/
12. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/world/middleeast/16insurgency.html?ex=1334376000&en=8e61c008a0e73db1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
13. http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565004412642525230
14. Department of Defense presents: U.S. Army Commander of Multnational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, May 11, 2007

• 2007 in Iraq
• Campaigns of the 2003 Iraq conflict
• Military campaigns involving the United States
• Iraqi insurgency