Iraqi civilians are cooperating more with security forces:
More and more, Iraqi citizens are helping suppress the insurgency in that country, a senior U.S. officer in Baghdad said today.
"The
Iraqi people increasingly are exposing the insurgency," Air Force Brig.
Gen. Donald Alston, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said. "In
some places there are (terrorist) cells that are concerned that they
can't blend into that neighborhood."
Officials at Multinational
Security Transition Command Iraq last week reported that Iraqi citizens
helped uncover large weapons caches and assisted Iraqi military and
police authorities in rescuing two hostages held in two separate
kidnappings. One tip, officials said, came from an Iraqi child who led
Iraqi Intervention Forces to a small cache in Mosul.
Since
April, Alston said, tips from the Iraqi public are up threefold, due in
part to an advertising campaign that was launched to make Iraqis aware
of resources available to report terror activities.
In stories of increasing public cooperation with security forces:
"An
Iraqi citizen walked up to the entrance of Iraqi Army base in central
Baghdad just after 6 p.m. June 5 and turned in a machinegun and several
hand grenades to Iraqi Soldiers guarding the gate. The man told the guards
he’d seen someone drop two sacks in a field the previous night. When
the Iraqi man returned to the site in the morning he found the sacks
hidden beneath some grass. Inside the bags the Iraqi citizen said he’d
found 37 hand grenades, 105 fuses and the machine gun. Iraqi Soldiers
went to the site, collected all the weapons and gave them to an
explosives team for disposal";
A huge cache
of explosives - including over 1,000 sub-munitions and 56,000 fuses -
removed from a factory in Northern Zafaraniya, after the factory's
owner contacted the Coalition forces on June 5;
"With the help of the Iraqi people, U.S. and Iraqi security forces found a bomb maker,
a terrorist financier and weapons caches in Baghdad on June 11 and
12... Acting on another tip earlier, Iraqi police officers arrested
three terror suspects - including two foreigners residing in Iraq
illegally - and seized weapons and bombs from a house in central
Baghdad on June 12"; two roadside bombs have also been located and
defused;
Acting on a tip, security forces in northern Baghdad arrested four suspects and seized a partially constructed car bomb on June 15;
"A local farmer reported, and later delivered, a large weapons cache
to Task Force Baghdad soldiers June 16. The Iraqi called officials from
1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd
Infantry Division, and told them of the weapons cache. The farmer then
transported the cache to an agreed-upon location and handed it over to
the soldiers. The cache included 400 hand grenades, 45 rocket-propelled
grenades, two RPG launchers, and a box of ammunition";
On June 18 and 19, tips from local residents led Task Force Liberty soldiers to two weapons caches containing a variety of bomb-making equipment near Ad Dwar in Salah Ad Din Province;
On June 19, "an Iraqi citizen offered to lead Task Force Baghdad Soldiers to the house of a man targeted for participating in a car bomb attack
on Coalition Forces earlier in the week. The citizen took the Soldiers
to a house in the Tamariyah district of south Baghdad. No one was home
when the Soldiers checked the house; but as they were leaving, the
citizen recognized the suspect’s car driving down the street. The
Soldiers stopped the vehicle and took the terror suspect into custody
for questioning";
Also on the same day, "a resident of central Baghdad told Task Force Baghdad soldiers about a group of terrorists
were planning an attack on a coalition check point in Abu Ghraib and
offered to go with the soldiers to point out exactly where the suspects
lived. The soldiers investigated the tip and took three suspects into
custody for questioning. Later, acting on a tip from a second Baghdad
resident, Iraqi army soldiers uncovered a cache of weapons containing
three mortar rounds, 13 projectiles of various types, 20 pounds of
solid rocket fuel, two rockets, an anti-tank mine, and an assortment of
blasting caps, fuses and wire";
Thanks to a tip from a local resident, a unit of the military police company of the Ukrainian contingent seized a weapons cache outside the town of Al-Kut;
"An Iraqi citizen’s tip helped Task Force Baghdad Soldiers capture eight terror suspects
in the Risalah district of south Baghdad on June 20. Shortly after 6
p.m., the Iraqi told the Soldiers he had seen approximately 10 men
running from the site of an attack on the Ministry of the Interior
compound into nearby houses. The tipster also said the men running into
the houses had AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. When a
patrol searched the houses, they detained eight terror suspects, many
of whom were found hiding in closets holding loaded weapons".
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