| I doubt that the Mad Mullahs™ are doing this out of the goodness of their cold, dark little hearts. Wonder if the recent 'arrests' of their people in Iraq has something to do with this? |
General James Simmons, a deputy corps commander, said that 1,560 IED (improvised explosive device) “events” had been recorded in October compared to 3,239 in March. “There has been a decrease every month during that time,” Simmons told a press conference in Baghdad, adding that the October figure was the lowest since September 2005.
He said Iranian weapons found recently in caches in Iraq appeared to have been brought into the country some time ago and there was no evidence that the flow of weapons across the border was continuing. “We believe that this indicates the commitments Iran has made appear to be holding up,” the general said.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said a fortnight ago that Teheran had assured Baghdad it would help stop the flow of Iranian arms into Iraq. “For the last four months,” said Simmons, “the number of IED attacks and casualties has dropped significantly. Right now there is a decrease across all the areas of Iraq.” He added the IED was still the “weapon of choice” for Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias but that the number of victims killed by the bombs was falling.
Insurgents were also using a new generation of IEDs, known as Explosive Formed Penetrators (EFPs), which use shaped charges capable of penetrating the thickest armour-plated vehicles.
A US military Stryker armoured vehicle attacked just outside Baghdad’s highly protected Green Zone on Wednesday, which killed two Iraqi civilians and a US soldier, had been struck by “an array” of EFPs, the general said. The attack, the first near the Green Zone in four or five months, took place in an area swarming with police, raising questions how the devices and the launcher could have been planted without anyone noticing.
IraqÂ’s central province of Wasit has a 200-kilometre (125-mile) border with Iran and authorities had struggled to stop the movement of weapons from Iran.
Simmons said part of the turnaround was due to an increasing number of tip-offs from Iraqi citizens about weapons caches. “We had found more caches by May of this year than in all of 2006,” he said.
| That's the more likely reason: the locals are fed up with the fighting. Oil money is flowing in, local politics are getting settled, and it's just easier to get on with life and figure out how to rig the family generator to run the new air conditioner. Beats fighting. And dying. |