Al Qaeda out of Fallujah by August?

Guardian:

A U.S. Marine commander in Anbar province predicted that al-Qaida fighters will be expelled from Fallujah by August as the military moves to cut insurgent supply and reinforcement lines into Baghdad and surrounding areas.

Brig. Gen. John Allen, the deputy commander for American forces west of Baghdad, said al-Qaida in Iraq has largely been pushed out of population centers in much of the Anbar province.

He cited the success in turning Sunni tribes against the organization and an influx of American troops to chase al-Qaida out of Iraqi and regions around the capital.

``The vast majority of them have been pushed out of the population centers,'' Allen said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. ``The surge has given us the troops we needed to really clear those areas, so we cleared them and we stayed.''

He said U.S. and Iraqi troops were trying to repeat recent success in calming Ramadi, the provincial capital, using the same neighborhood-by-neighborhood tactics in Fallujah - a Sunni insurgent bastion that was first cleared by a massive American assault in 2004.

``We're going to finish off those neighborhoods by August,'' he told AP. ``The people are really responding well, establishing very quickly neighborhood watch organizations and a police precinct headquarters now in every neighborhood,'' he said.

Allen said the military planned to oust al-Qaida fighters from Karmah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, by the end of July, and tackle them in the area around Tharthar Lake to the north.

``We're going to clear Karmah here very shortly,'' he said, describing the town as a ``way station'' to and from the capital, ``and we're going to go up around Lake Tharthar and we're going to go after them there.''

...

Allen said the arrival of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the area as part of a U.S. troop buildup ordered by President Bush has enabled the American forces to turn their attention to places previously considered no-go zones.

...

This is the result you should expect when you have an adequate force to space ratio to work with. It is about denying space for enemy operations and it is in a strategic area of Iraq where success will deny the enemy the use of his rat lines into Baghdad and Diyala. It is also another success story from Iraq that will go with the Arrowhead ripper operation. That September report is looking more and more like a big disappointment to Democrats who want to lose the war.