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Security stations support constant presence

BAGHDAD — The Zafaraniyah Joint Security Station doesn’t look like your typical army base or police station.

The electricity cuts off every once in a while, the ground is unpaved and the leaking sewage system floods the compound with dark, murky water.

But the station, also known as a JSS, is a key piece of the fight to restore safety to Iraq’s capital.

Located just down the street from the Zafaraniyah Government Center, where a neighborhood council meets once a week and locals stream in and out to talk to their community’s leaders, the JSS is a place where American and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police can live and work together among the people they serve.

Capt. Dave Eastburn, commander of B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, spends two 24-hour periods at the joint security station every week. There are always at least two platoons of 2-17 soldiers, as well as other U.S. troops involved in training Iraqi forces, at the station at any time.

“When we got here, it was a lot more hostile,” he said, citing the deeply rooted presence of insurgents. “The estimated participation in [the Jaysh Al Mahdi militia] was probably 90 percent. They had a stronghold on gas stations, the police, some of the national police. Pretty much everybody was affected in some way, shape or form.”

His soldiers and their counterparts from 1st Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division, have been able to improve the security in the area by maintaining a constant presence in the neighborhood, Eastburn said.

“Once the people started seeing they could trust us, the information started to flow,” he said. “The situation is extremely manageable now. We have days when we have a found IED or small-arms fire that you hear. The difference now is the Iraqi army and Iraqi police tell us they found the IED before it went off.”

Soldiers from 2-17 belong to 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which took control of east Baghdad in November. When 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, arrived in January, they took over part of 2/2’s area of operations, including Sadr City and Adhamiyah. Without those two districts, 2/2 is still responsible for an area that is home to 2.1 million people, about 60 percent of whom are Shia, said Lt. Col. Dean Dunham, the brigade’s deputy commanding officer.

The soldiers of 2-17 are in charge of Security District Karadah and its 400,000 residents. Karadah is one of Baghdad’s nine security districts, said Capt. Andy White, 2-17’s operations officer.

“This is the first peace and quiet in this [area of operations] for a long time,” White said.

Plans are in the works to establish a satellite joint security station and a combat outpost.

Putting Iraqi soldiers and police in the same place also forces them to work together, Eastburn said.

“When we first moved in, nobody got along,” he said. “Now they sit together, they talk, they eat together. I think the professionalism of the Iraqi army is rubbing off on the Iraqi police.”

The Iraqi forces have picked up a large share of responsibility, Eastburn said.

“I think we’re well ahead of where we need to be as far as Iraqis taking control of the area, and I have full confidence the Iraqi army will be able to do as good a job as we do,” he said.