The Long War Journal: Assault on Camp Gannon Repelled; and River Gate Continues

Written by Bill Roggio on October 17, 2005 8:35 PM to The Long War Journal

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/10/assault_on_camp.php

Last spring, al Qaeda unwisely assaulted Camp Gannon, the U.S. Marine outpost located in Husaybah on the Syrian border. While the attack was championed in the press as proof of the strength and staying power of al Qaeda, the terrorists suffered an awful defeat when attempting to attack the Marines en masse. Estimates put the enemy casualties anywhere from 35 to 85%, depending on the size of the assault force, stunning losses no matter which figure is used.

Yesterday, insurgents took another stab at Camp Gannon, with identical results as last spring. The attack was repelled and twelve insurgents are believed to have been killed, with zero Marine casualties. The bloody lesson of last spring has not filtered through the ranks, and the insurgency sacrifices its troops needlessly, much like the recently deceased terrorists in and around Ramadi yesterday.

In the nearby town of Karabilah, Coalition forces used local intelligence to conduct a raid on a safe house. Five terrorists were killed in the initial firefight, and five others were killed as well when attempting to set up a mortar position to engage the Coalition forces. Karabilah sits just west of Sa'dah, where U.S. forces have established outposts to secure the town, interdict the insurgent's ratlines and strike out at insurgents and al Qaeda massing in the area.

The attack on Camp Gannon should be viewed as an act of desperation by the insurgents, as Karabilah now sits between Camp Gannon in Husaybah and the outposts in and around Sa'dah. The insurgents must press to eject the Marines before their strength is consolidated and their ability to operate in the region diminishes.

In Haqlaniyah, Marine forward observers spot three terrorists plan a roadside bomb, then track them to a nearby cave. The Marines killed the terrorists, and subsequently discovered a small weapons cache containing "bomb-making tools and equipment, black uniforms and ski masks."

Combined with Coalition attacks in Ramadi that killed over seventy insurgents, the enemy suffered over one hundred killed in action in the course of 24 hours. For an insurgency estimated in the tens of thousands, these casualties cannot be sustained indefinitely, particularly when significant numbers of the sympathetic Sunni population are considering entering the political process.

Coalition forces are cashing in on the efforts behind Operations Iron Fist and River Gate, as they have now set themselves up in a position to keep the insurgents and al Qaeda from operating in the open, thereby improving their intelligence capabilities and their ability to conduct offensive operations.

These operations have also created an environment where the Sunnis can consider dropping their support for the insurgency and continue the fight on the political front. There are two months until the next election for the Iraqi Assembly, which will cement the constitution and create the laws of the land. The Sunni fence-sitters will need to decide if they wish to continue down the path of violence with little hope of success, or take the best deal possible and enter the government.