Today's Lightning brief.

Operation lightning is showing good results in Baghdad and its suburbs one week after it was launched and I guess that this good effect comes from the high coordination among the different departments of Iraqi security forces as well as the multinational forces.
The last 24 hours or so resulted in arresting some 300 terrorists and suspects in addition to confiscating amounts of weapons and munitions according to local papers and TV.
So, here's a summary of the operations:

In Adwaniya district in Rasheed suburb security forces clashed with a group of armed men and by the end of the clashes 30 militants were arrested and all their weapons were captured.
While in Ja'ara and Wardiya near Mada'in, Iraqi forces raided some suspected terrorists hides and arrested 27 of them and found weapons and anti-Iraqi publications.

In Mahmoudia near the so called triangle of death, 32 terrorists were captured and remote control detonation devices were found in the raid.

Also 5 terrorists were arrested in Huriya west of Baghdad, 10 in Jurf Al-Sakhr and Sewairah to the south of the capital.
Another 14 terrorists were captured in Nahrawan and 9Neesan districts.

In Al-Tarmiya to the north of Baghdad, a mechanized regiment of Iraqi forces carried out several raids and arrested 2 of the dangerous wanted terrorists, Hussein Abdullah and 'Owayed Al-Ubaidi; mortar rounds, grenades and detonation devices were seized in the operation.

In the notorious area of Latifiyah, the 1st regiment of the 4th brigade carried out a number of raids near the international highway and arrested 64 terrorists while in Mahdiya district in Al-Doura region, the 1st regiment of the 2nd brigade Special Forces arrested 36 suspects and confiscated their weapons.

In Al-Shishbar district in Mahmoudia, the 4th brigade Iraqi forces raided the neighborhoods between Al-Salam quarter in the north and Alexandria in the south and arrested 73 suspects and confiscated their weapons along with 7 vehicles were used in performing terror attacks.

In another important development, it seems that the government has identified the leader of the murderous group "The Army of Ansar Al-Sunna" as the newspapers and Iraqia TV today mentioned that now "there's a 50,000 $ reward put by the government for anyone who submits information that lead to the arrest or death of Abu Abdullah Al-Shaafi'i".
This terrorist organization is one of the most dangerous groups currently working in Iraq.

Generally speaking, Baghdad looks quieter these days and I hope that operation lightning would extend to storm all terror nests after Baghdad is well cleaned as was planned previously.

I recall that the most pessimistic researches estimated the number of militants by 200,000 and that there are other 5 million supporters and sympathizers and I admit that the numbers seem huge just like Saddam's empty millions-sized armies but anyhow when we look at the other side we find 22 million people standing against terrorism and working to build a democracy.

Do you know who's going to be the victor?
It's not a very difficult question, eh?

Mohammed.