The Baghdad Belts are the residential, agricultural and industrial areas, as well as communications and transportation infrastructure that encircle the Iraqi capital and connect it to other areas in Iraq.[1] In the Iraq War, they were used by insurgents as staging points for operations in the capital.
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The belts can be described as the provinces adjacent to the Iraqi capital and can be divided into four quadrants: Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest. Beginning in the north, the belts include the province of Salah ad Din, clockwise to Baghdad province, Diyala in the North-east, Babil and Wasit in the south east and around to Al Anbar in the west.
Between 2004 and June 2007, Al Qaida in Iraq and Shi'ite militias used locations in the Baghdad Belts to supply their combat operations in the capital. According to General Odierno, a top US commander in Iraq, "“Attacks occurring in Baghdad often originate in these outerlying regions."[1] In 2006, US forces captured a map hand-drawn by then-al Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi which showed Al Qaida placed a high priority on controlling the belts as a means of transporting weapons and fighters as well as providing bases in which to construct bomb-making factories.
Beginning in early 2007, the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, committed three of the five "Surge" brigades to the belts. In June 2007, as part of a country-wide offensive to secure the country, a number of operations were launched throughout the belts: