"Surging South of Baghdad" is the first in-depth study of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq during the troop surge. Dale Andrade examines the war in the Multi-National Division-Center, an area of operations established in the spring of 2007 to focus on the insurgent sanctuaries and supply lines south of the Iraqi capital. Before the surge, the territory was a backwater, used by al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups to recruit new fighters, construct roadside bombs, and transport both to the ongoing fighting in Baghdad. One of the five new brigades that "surged" into Iraq went to this region, more than doubling the number of U.S. forces already there and forming the southern anchor of the battle to sever this crucial link with the insurgents in the capital. The fighting south of Baghdad became something of a microcosm of the surge overall, an example of the necessity to combine troop strength with sound planning in order to defeat insurgents living among the population. This volume, completed only a short time after the event, provides a valuable perspective for the ongoing counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

DALE ANDRADE is a senior historian in the Histories Division of the U.S. Army Center of Military History and is the author of the World War II commemorative brochure "Luzon" and several books, including "America's Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi's 1972 Easter Offensive." He is currently completing the official volume covering U.S. Army combat operations in Vietnam from 1969 to 1973.