IRAQ: Troops from the US Marine Corps 2nd Marine Division are now entering their fourth day of sustained combat operations against Sunni insurgents in Iraq's northwestern al-Anbar province.
Recent media reports have speculated that the current operation is evidence of a shift in focus by US Central Command (Centcom) away from the indigenous insurgency, comprising former regime elements, towards a narrower resistance base consisting of foreign fighters and extremist Sunni Jihadis operating out of Syria. This estimate is wide of the mark.
The latest offensive is informed by a combination of operational developments and intelligence coups. These indicate that former elements of Saddam Hussein's secular Sunni regime are now co-operating with radical Sunni Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda to undermine Ibrahim al-Jaafari's fledgling cabinet.
One of the clearest indications of this unprecedented co-operation came in February of this year when Task Force 626 - a US special forces unit dedicated to the capture of insurgent leaders - seized Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's laptop computer in Ramadi.
This in turn led indirectly to the arrest last week of one of his closest lieutenants, Mohammed al-Zubaydi, known as "Abu al- Abbas".
Abu al-Abbas is reported by Centcom to have confessed to masterminding the assault on Abu Ghraib prison in early April and the recent spate of suicide car-bombings throughout Iraq, which rose from just 16 in February to over 200 in March and April alone.
US sources also indicate that intelligence obtained through al-Abbas and other recently captured insurgents has emphasised the importance of former Baathist training camps and weapons caches within Syria and along its border with Iraq to the success of the renewed and reinvigorated insurgency in Iraq following January's elections.
Operational developments have also informed Centcom's decision to concentrate ground forces in this area. Just two weeks ago, Camp Gannon, a US Marine expeditionary force forward operating base, close to al-Qaim and Husayba in al-Anbar province, came under sustained attack from more than 40 insurgents. The assault included three massive suicide bombs contained in a light utility vehicle, a large cargo truck and a fire engine.
Had the suicide bombers succeeded in breaching the perimeter of the US base, it is likely its occupants would have been massacred.
The level of planning and the sustained nature of this audacious attack along with intelligence gleaned from other sources have indicated to Centcom in recent weeks that the centre of gravity of the Sunni resistance within Iraq has shifted west and north from Falluja and the "Sunni triangle" to the border area with Syria.
The current US offensive has so far met with considerable resistance. Deploying US marines to the current area of operations north of the Euphrates in the al-Jazira desert required the US army's 814th Multi-Role Bridge Company to bridge the river.
Unfortunately for US forces, the engineers apparently failed to observe light discipline before dawn on Sunday. According to sources within the US military, they were not equipped with night-vision goggles and used truck headlights to search for roadside bombs en route to the prearranged crossing point on the Euphrates.
As a result, the Marine Regimental Combat Team was robbed of surprise and prior to the start of operations came under sustained rocket and mortar fire from the towns of al-Qaim and Obeidi.
This resistance delayed the beginning of the current assault and brought US casualties in Iraq to more than 1,600.
Current combat operations within Iraq seem to indicate that the insurgency has regrouped uncomfortably close to Syria.
Ominously, there is also evidence of improved co-operation between fundamentalist Islamic Sunnis and their secular counterparts among Saddam's former circles.
