Tall Afar resists the enemy's attempts to comeback

Washington Post:

A year ago, U.S. officials championed the military's success in pushing insurgents out of this city in Iraq's northwestern desert, reclaiming it for the roughly 250,000 residents and eliminating an insurgent safe haven. President Bush publicly praised the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's effort.

In the months since, soldiers say, Tall Afar has proved a model for the rest of Iraq, an insurgent stronghold turned relatively peaceful. Attacks dwindled to almost none in August before a spate of violence in September and October tied to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The local government is strong. Iraqi security forces are poised to take control from the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops in the region, which is a reduction of 75 percent from the U.S. presence here last spring.

"I think Tall Afar is on its way," said Lt. Col. Malcolm Frost, who commands the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, based just southwest of the city and now in charge of the region. "I think it's a beacon of light, not just for security but also in local government infrastructure. I think we're close to the tipping point."

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Though sectarian violence has been stemmed by cooperation among Sunni and Shiite Muslim sheiks here, insurgents attack Shiite civilians in the southern part of Tall Afar and Iraqi forces in the north. Officials call it a delicate balance.

"Tall Afar was another Fallujah or Ramadi," said Mayor Najim al-Jibouri, referring to cities in western Iraq that have experienced heavy fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents. "But with the help of the people, everyone gained the momentum and claimed Tall Afar from the terrorists and vowed not to go back to the old, bad days. Still, there are a lot of shortcomings that really disappoint us. Things like that prolong the life of the insurgency."

The mayor points mainly to the lack of help from the Iraqi government, which has left parts of the city a shambles. The city's northwest quadrant is like a ghost town, with scores of vacant houses, some reduced to rubble by fighting more than a year ago, almost entirely cordoned off with Iraqi police checkpoints designed to choke the insurgents' ability to move.

Soldiers call the northwest neighborhood the city's "gated community" because Iraqi forces have put such a stranglehold on it. In addition to reducing attacks, the restrictions have kept some people from moving back in, officials said.

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There is much more. The "gated community" approach is a classic way to deal with an enemy that uses a raiding strategy and attempts to camouflage himself as a civilian. It restricts his ability to move without detection and denies him a sanctuary. It is possible that one solution to the problem in Baghdad is to create several gated communities within the city which would make it difficult for both the militias and the enemy to take over neighborhoods.