U.S. Army 1st Lt. Brandon Whitis beams with delight after being given a meal on flat bread by an Iraqi man and woman in the Diyala River Valley region of Iraq on Aug. 14, 2007. Whitis and his fellow soldiers from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, are patrolling in the region. Operation Lightning Hammer concluded Aug. 22 after a 12-day, large-scale operation to disrupt al Qaeda and other terrorist elements in the Diyala River Valley, a complex area of villages and palm groves in Iraq’s Diyala province.
The operation, which involved about 16,000 Iraqi and coalition forces clearing some 50 villages, was a key element in Multinational Corps Iraq’s overall Operation Phantom Strike, and it resulted in 26 al Qaeda members killed, 37 suspected terrorists detained, and the discovery of 10 weapons caches.
“The strength and determination of the fighting men and women from the Iraqi and coalition forces showed great results during Lightning Hammer,” said Army Col. David W. Sutherland, commander of coalition forces in Diyala province. “We have continued to diminish their supplies and disable al Qaeda’s abilities to disrupt the population.”
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