Dead Children Killing al Qaeda
July 14, 2005: A senior aide to Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Abu Abd al Aziz, was captured. Al Aziz is second in command of al Qaeda forces in Baghdad, and a key organizer of terrorist attacks. For many Iraqi police, shutting down al Qaeda has become something of an obsession. Iraqi television and radio cover this battle with the terrorists intensely. The deaths of Iraqi civilians and security troops are given front page coverage, as are the operations against the terrorists. Much to the dismay of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, the media keeps pointing out that nearly all the Iraqi supporters of the al Qaeda terrorists are Sunni Arabs. The leaders of the Iraqi Sunni Arab community are working hard to prove their loyalty, before popular opinion against Iraqi Sunni Arabs gets out of control, and widespread attacks on Sunni Arabs begins.
July 13, 2005: A suicide bomber driving through a poor neighborhood in Baghdad, seeing an American military vehicle, drove as close as he could and detonated his explosives. One U.S. soldier was killed, and three wounded. But the American vehicle was surrounded by over fifty Iranian children, because the soldiers were giving out candy. At least 32 children, mostly aged 10-13, were killed, and another three dozen wounded. These kinds of attacks have made the terrorists very unpopular in Iraq, just as similar attacks in Egypt and Algeria (during the 1990s) turned the population against Islamic terrorists there. Tangible examples of that hatred are seen daily as more and more Iraqis report terrorist activity. This has led to more arrests of terrorists, and the capture of bomb making materials, workshops and the bomb makers themselves.
Posted by: Steve 2005-07-14 |