Rockets Hit Near U.N. Chief in Baghdad

Ban Ki-Moon is undergoing a bapitsm by fire in his new role as UN Secretary-General. He was visibly fazed by a mortar round that exploded today outside the UN complex in the Green Zone, where he'd been giving a televised news conference with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki shrugged off the shaking walls and curtains, as if to say, "Welcome to my world, Ki-Moon."  In other, more propitious news:

Elsewhere in Iraq, American forces said they had captured a senior aide and several other associates of Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric and militia leader. The aide was said to be involved in the kidnap and murder of American soldiers, according to Reuters, which cited an American military spokesman.

Sadr's cooperation with Operation Enforcing the Law (the Iraqi-designated policy that now accompanies the surge) has been truly remarkable. Shortly after the announced U.S. troop escalation, he ordered the Mahdi Army militiamen not to wear black uniforms or face masks or to carry weapons. The Mahdi also proceeded to withdraw checkpoints from certain areas in Baghdad, like Talbiyah and Hurriyah. Confrontation with Multinational Forces was also expressly prohibited during the religious month of Muharram.

So far, "rogue" elements of the Mahdi have been rounded up and nabbed by the coalition, including Sadr's former media chief Sheik Abdul al-Darraji and the director of Sadr's political office in Baqubah. The fat cleric himself has fled to Iran, the better to let the government and Americans do their job.

Just what kind of perceptible change in strategy has occurred on the ground in Baghdad. According to the Weekly Standard's excellent biweekly Iraq Report [I'd link but their site is down],

U.S. forces conducted 20,000 patrols in the second week of February, up from 7,400 in the first week of the month.

Joint American-Iraqi patrols have begun (respectfully) knocking on doors in Sadr City, talking to local residents and getting the skinny on weapons caches and other illegal activities. 

Let us stress, however, that with these discernible improvements, it's still way too early to pass judgment on how the new counterinsurgency plan will pan out in the long-term. Nonetheless, Petraeus' educated predictions for the start of such a campaign are coming true.