A summary of the past week in Iraq implies that the Iraqi government, and the performance of Iraqi security forces is improved. Notably, Salah Hassan, a senior member in Ansar al-Sunna, Iraq's Islamic state, surrendered in Kirkuk. Importantly, Coalition forces, mostly Iraqi, cleared previously held Mahdi areas--Al-Najibiyah, Al-Makkal, Al-Ashhar, Al-Zubair and Qarmat Ali. In sum, 571 Mahdis were killed, 881 were wounded, 490 were captured, and 30 surrendered in 7 days. To reach this point, representatives from Maliki's Dawa party and the Badr Organization traveled to Qom, Iran to lobby the Qods Force to get Sadr to cease fighting. In Iran, the representatives met Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, commander of Qods, and the foreign special operations branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
I could still see the situation quickly turn into a Lebanon type of situation but for the first time Iraqi security forces really stood toe-to-toe with Mahdi and held their own.
