Attacks southwest of Baghdad at lowest level since last year

[unhappycamper]

Attacks southwest of Baghdad at lowest level since last year
By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, October 23, 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. — Attacks against U.S. troops southwest of Baghdad are the lowest they’ve been in the last year, according to the commander of U.S. forces there.

Army Col. Michael Garrett, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division said as a result “over the last month, we have made as much progress against Shia and Sunni extremists as we’ve made in the previous 10 months.”

During a Monday video brief from his headquarters at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, Garrett said previously the lowest number of monthly attacks the “Spartan” Brigade had registered was 79 in November 2006.

But so far this month, there have been no attacks at all, according to the chart.

“Thirteen months later we’ve seen significant change,” in the brigade’s area of responsibility, which includes Babil, Karbala and Najaf Provinces, Garrett said.

Garrett said that much of the reason the security situation has changed so quickly is thanks to the ballooning “concerned citizens” movement, an effort that uses local Iraqis in a sort of armed-and-paid neighborhood watch security program.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49706



uhc comment: This is a slightly different spin than Micheal Yon's --> http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/resistance-is-futile.htm