Counter-mortar operations in the Sunni Triangle

Some notes on an article from the Infantry Journal:

In addition to the evolution of mortar sophistication, the enemy began using stolen rockets (seized from existing ammo storage sites during the early days of the war) to fire at friendly larger fixed sites

Besides pointing out that those facilities - like Al-Qaqaa - could have been secured, this would seem to poke a hole in the State Dept.'s spin, that the insurgency is supplied by Syria and Iran.

The actual counter-mortar strategy:

The key to success is to quickly acquire the acquisition grid, announce the grid, clear fires immediately, then fire counterfire within three to four minutes using all available indirect fire assets while simultaneously maneuvering ground forces to predetermined checkpoints To aid in more responsive fires, it is best to have battalion mortars laid on priority targets...
...The keys to it all were immediate counterfire...

... rests on practices criticized as "heavy-handed and disproportionate" by senior British commanders in Iraq last year.