What is happening in Anbar Province?

We have been told continuously all is well, but is that the case? Let's take a look at attacks starting from the U.S. pull out of the cities at the end of June. See if you can find the targeting trend. Headlines from icasualties.org.

JULY

07/15/09 Ramadi - Five people were killed and 12 others were injured mostly soldiers from Abu Risha emergency battalion when a suicide car bomb detonated in downtown Ramadi city around 9 a.m.

07/16/09 Anbar - An Iraqi Emergency Force killed a policeman while attempting to detain him in in his home in Garma neighbourhood, 20 km to the north of Fallujah, Thursday morning.

07/17/09 FALLUJA - A bomb planted in the house of a police captain killed two children and wounded 11 other members of the same family in the city of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

07/17/09 FALLUJA - A bomb inside a football ground killed one person and wounded nine others in Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

07/20/09 RAMADI - A bomb in a parked car killed two policemen and wounded another when it exploded near a police checkpoint close to Anbar's provincial council building in central Ramadi.

07/21/09 RAMADI - a car bomb exploded outside a restaurant where deputy provincial police chief Mohammed Dulaimi was having lunch. Five people were killed and 17 were wounded.

07/25/09 FALLUJA - A car bomb exploded near the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, killing five people and wounding 21 others in Falluja...an Interior Ministry source said. Police said there were two blasts and put the toll at two killed and 25 wounded.

07/27/09 FALLUJA - A bomb planted on the car of an Iraqi army captain killed him in Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

07/30/09 QAIM - A suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a police station in Qaim, 300 km (185 miles) west of Baghdad, killing four people and wounding seven, police said.

AUGUST

08/02/09 Haditha - Eight people (three men, three children and two women were killed and 20 others were wounded by a parked car bomb in Haditha town northwest of Ramadi city around 10 a.m.

08/05/09 RAMADI - A bomb in a parked car killed a woman and wounded two policemen and a civilian when it struck a police patrol in central Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

08/14/09 Falaht - One civilian was killed when a bomb detonated near a fuel station in Falaht area to the west of Fallujah around 11 a.m.

08/16/09 FALLUJA - Gunmen broke into a house and killed four people then booby trapped the building with bombs, wounding five people who tried to enter it after the shooting, police said.

08/29/09 FALLUJA - A bomb attached to the car of a local politician representing Interior Minister Jawad Bolani's party killed the politician, his son and another person travelling with them in Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

SEPTEMBER

09/07/09 RAMADI - A suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint just outside the city of Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 13, police said.

09/27/09 RAMADI - A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and wounded eight when he detonated himself outside a police station near Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, local police colonel Ahmed Abood said.

09/28/09 ANBAR - A suicide bomber driving a water tanker packed with explosives blew himself up near a police station, killing seven policemen and wounding 10, said Hussein Ali, a police major in the area west of the city of Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

OCTOBER

10/01/09 FALLUJA - A bomb planted on a car killed one civilian and wounded another in Fallujah, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

10/05/09 FALLUJA - A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded 6, including two Iraqi soldiers, when it exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in central Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

10/06/09 FALLUJA - A minibus bomb exploded at a market in the western Iraqi town of Amiriya on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 31, a local official said.

10/09/09 FALLUJA - A bomb attached to a car killed a Sunni imam and two other people in a village outside of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

10/11/09 RAMADI - Three car bombs exploded in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, killing 19 and injuring 81. Two car bombs exploded in a quick succession.The third attack targeted the main hospital in the city by a suicide attacker driving a car bomb.

So we have the US mission in Anbar Province drawing to a close, assassinations of authority figures on the rise, and this past weekend two attacks against infrastructure. But since the frequency of attacks and number of people killed are not near the 2006 level, Anbar is still a success. Then again, it took a year for the U.S. leadership to finally acknowledge the existence of an insurgency. I think this quote from the Washington Post article on the bridge bombings sums up the current status.

"If insurgents can possess five tons of explosives and use them freely to destroy bridges, then it would be a shame to claim that we have achieved security,"

A quick 10+ minutes on tribal power plays and dynamics in recent Iraq history.