This report comes from a fairly reliable source, although I will not vouch for the original source, for obvious reasons.

US-Iraqi onslaught on Qaeda kills 30 gunmen

Operation Arrowhead Ripper is the US-Iraqi military operation launched against Al Qaeda which began on Tuesday in Diyala Province. The onslaught targets Al Qaeda Network in general and the strongholds of the so called Islamic State of Iraq. According to the US Army, the operation killed 30 insurgents. In addition, US and Iraqi forces found several weapons caches, including four homemade bombs in a house in Baquba and another 10 bombs buried underground, the US military said.

OK, two days into the operation (really butch name, BTW) and we’ve killed at least 30 people the Army has identified as “gunmen”. There is no news about dead civilians, of course, since MNF-I and CENTCOM don’t bother counting them.

And we found four homemade bombs and 10 buried bombs. Here’s hoping we found them before they exploded.

Moreover, two gunmen were killed while trying to plant a roadside bomb near the Province. US Forces fired rockets on a weapons cache located in one of the insurgents’ homes destroying it completely.

“The end state is to destroy the Al Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people”, Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general, operations, 25th Infantry Division, said.

It is to be noted that the onslaught is the largest operation since Al Falluja campaign in November 2004, backed by air support and combat armors.

Looking back here, it seems like we traded 14 dead GIs for a reported 30 gunmen and 14 IEDs.

Is this a good trade?