Multi-National Division – Center’s Operations during the 2007-2008 Troop Surge

With the Troop Surge, Coalition planners determined that the most effective way to end Iraq's cycle of spiraling sectarian violence would be to secure the population of Baghdad.  Because both Sunni and Shi'a extremists were using the belts ringing Baghdad as sanctuaries to support their operations inside the city, Coalition planners determined that they would need to clear and hold those belts in order to deliver security to Baghdad.

To that end, Multi-National Division - Center has undertaken a series of operations to clear the Southern belts of Baghdad of both Sunni and Shi'a extremists from June 2007. These operations methodically pushed out from the areas closest to Baghdad, taking pains to ensure that Coalition forces would not overextend themselves by clearing more territory than they could hold. As a result, Coalition operations in MND-C slowly but surely dismantled insurgent networks in both the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys, securing those populations and helping ensure that the population in Baghdad would not face the same horrific levels of sectarian violence that marked so much of Operation Iraqi Freedom prior to the Surge.

These operations serve as useful case studies for the application of the United States military's Counter-Insurgency doctrine in Iraq along strategic, operational, and tactical lines.