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WASHINGTON D.C. (June 4, 2008) - Last month marked the fewest
attacks in Iraq in four years, a reduction one military official
today attributed to improved security tactics and personnel and an
increase in tips from Iraqi citizens.
The number of bombing attacks involving deadly, armor-piercing
charges and homemade explosives decreased in May and continues to
fall, Army Brig. Gen. John Campbell, deputy director for regional
operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a
Pentagon news conference.
"Both EFP and IED numbers continue to go down; the trend is
looking very well," Campbell said, referring to armor-piercing
explosively formed penetrators and the more conventional roadside
bombs known as improvised explosive devices, the two most common
weapons used by militants in Iraq.
Campbell said coalition and Iraqi security forces are more
aggressively seeking weapons caches, which often contain completed
bombs or the materials necessary to manufacture them. Seizing these
weapons and bomb-making ingredients depletes enemy resources, he
added.
Meanwhile, coalition forces are placing greater emphasis on
training police along Iraq's eastern border with Iran. These border
police are the first line of defense against smugglers sneaking
EFPs into Iraq, where Iranian-backed "special groups" employ the
shaped charges against coalition and Iraqi forces, Campbell
said.
Iraqis also are taking seriously the issue of border security,
he said, adding that Iraqi officials have held talks about
improving checkpoints by fielding more X-ray machines and other
sophisticated technology to help stem bomb smuggling.
Campbell acknowledged that enemy fighters tend to lay low or
flee sections of the country where coalition and Iraqi forces
increase their presence, as in Sadr City, Mosul and Basra, three
areas that have received increased security focus recently. But the
general did not concede that such tendencies alone explain last
month's downtick in bombing attacks.
"It's no secret that if they stay and fight, they don't have a
chance," Campbell said of the militants. "Whether they wait a time
and come back and pick up those caches -- I can't tell. But just
the trends right now for the IEDs and EFPs are continuing to go
low."
The general said the ranks of Iraqi security personnel continue
to grow, with an overall force of about 559,000 that, alongside
coalition forces, increasingly works among the Iraqi
population.
"As we've flooded the zones, we've moved out the joint security
stations and combat outposts [and have] a 24/7 presence out there.
It's a lot harder to put these [bombs] out as we continue to
patrol," Campbell said. "I think that combination has helped."
Another element bolstering security is citizens groups, known as
"Sons of Iraq," that provide Iraqi and coalition forces with
invaluable intelligence about enemy strategy and tactics, the
general said.
Officials are planning to recruit some 15,000 Sons of Iraq
members to join the nation's security forces. At the same time,
they seek to help the roughly 65,000 group members gain technical
or other training, or find jobs.
Another key to tamping down violence in Iraq is an empirical
understanding of enemy tactics gleaned over the course of
deployments, Campbell said.
"I think the final thing is just experience," he said. "The
longer you are on the ground, … you'll see the number of caches
found and the number of IEDs and EFPs found much, much higher."
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