Concerned Local Citizens of Baqubah

The most recent developments here at the Joint Combat Outpost in Baqubah have involved the group of Concerned Local Citizens. The leader of the CLC's is Abu Matheina. He was previously a captain in Saddam Hussein's army and retreated to start his own militia group after the formal Iraqi Army was disbanded in 2003. The CLC's which number over 500 in Baqubah, are going through screening to become Iraqi Police. Most of them come from the group 1920 which is a militia that banded together against both Al Qaeda and U.S. forces at the beginning of the war to keep order in their hometown. The group has used guerilla tactics like suicide bombing, car bombs and sniper fire. All of these can be very demoralizing to our more powerful force but cannot stop it.

At this point we have identified most of the active members and are encouraging them to join the Iraqi Police force. In the past ten days we have converted the paper records of the Iraqi government into a computer database, and more importantly taken their fingerprints and a retina scan of each member. I took part in searching them as they lined up outside the compound en masse. Anyone entering the compound must be searched for weapons and possibly explosives.

This documentation process has taken place at several locations. Today our headquarters platoon went to the water treatment plant in town and stood guard while another 120 of the CLC's were registered. The process took about four hours. Another important event was the opening of a new traffic route in town. Route Gold as it is called was sectioned off with concrete barriers for a long time in order to stop the flow of weapons and contraband into Baqubah.

It is hard to believe that a further increase in security is needed. When we drive down the main roads in our Stryker vehicles, there are IP's everywhere directing traffic and throngs of people. Iraqi Army soldiers help with the job and are more reliable. Occasionally they fire their weapons in an attempt to direct traffic and get people to move. Traffic laws are not what they should be and there is a wide range of vehicles on the roads including cars, trucks, minibuses and donkey carts.

Our company continues to patrol the area on foot and mounted in vehicles. There is less and less of a concern for violence as the Iraqi forces take over. One concern is that the groups will be too segmented and turn against each other, reverting to old conflicts between regions in the past. A strong central government will be necessary to direct the nation's security.