November 5, 2014.
Jurf al-Sakhar is a city of 80,000 on a line from Baghdad going south-by-southwest toward Karbala. Back in early June an ISIS attack group took the city unopposed. Since then this was their base for raids and suicide attacks into southern Iraq.
AP, Reuters and other Western news agencies report that General Qassem Suleimani planned and led the execution of these military operations. The battle plan at Jurf al-Sakhar replicates what the General had carried out earlier at al-Qusayr, Tikrit, and Amerli. His approach can be described as "surround and annihilate."
That is the opposite to what happened during "The Surge" by Americans. At worst the Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters retreated to Syria. Very few of them were killed.
Driving ISIS forces or any of the al-Qaeda clones out of a city is seen as useless by General Suleimani and his command team.
All but 50 of the ISIS defenders were killed. Then the survivors were questioned. Which could mean anything. Reportedly a number of them are/were Chechen.
The good news is that this action clears access to Route 12 going up on the south side of Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit, and the approaches to the al-Asad air base. Resupplying al-Asad and moving troops in for ground offensive operations should now be a routine process, allowing that there is a war on.
One big clue as to where this war is going is that ISIS did nothing to support troops trying to hold Jurf al-Sakhar.
Either that's easy-come-easy-go, putting a low value on the city, or they have run out of troops for operations in Anbar Province. We know that the planes and chops out of al-Asad are pounding everything in the area that looks like ISIS. Iraqi Security Force kills have been running 500 to 1,000 ISIS raiders a month. Could be higher.
After the action ended one section of the last firing line had 150 ISIS bodies on the ground. There were no plans to bury them. "Less than dogs" is the governing principle, largely ignoring public health considerations.
It is not clear at this point how ISIS intends to keep going in Iraq. Their people are getting killed apace and they haven't had a victory apart from suicide-bombings since June.