|
Signs that the terrorists are losing in Iraq
Omar Fadhil, Wall Street JournalBAGHDAD--The latest chapter in al Qaeda's war manual in their war against the Iraqi people and the Coalition is this: raiding remote peaceful villages, burning down homes and slaughtering both man and beast. It's a campaign of self destruction. For about a year al Qaeda has been trying to build a so called Islamic State in Iraq. On several occasions al Qaeda has even declared parts of Baghdad or other places in other provinces the capital of this Islamic State. But now that they are losing one base after another, their objective seems to have changed from adding more towns and villages to the "state" to destroying the very same towns and villages. Obviously, it's all about making headlines regardless of the means to do that. This change in plans began to take shape with the battle between al Qaeda and the joint forces on Sept. 6 and 7 in Hor Rijab and then the massacre that followed in the same spot a week later and finally the attacks on other villages north, south and east of Baghdad in the last week or so. Actually first I'd like to recommend reading a good post by Jules Crittenden about the flawed timing of this "Little Tet. Anyway, our interest today is more about the field situation and strategy than about timing since the latter seems to be not so friendly to al Qaeda. Well, actually timing is very important here too but at a rather different level. In my opinion al Qaeda found itself forced to start this villages war. It wasn't a choice as much as a last resort because villages are among the few fighting spaces that al Qaeda can still utilize as large cities become increasingly difficult for them to operate in. They know that without engaging the enemy--that's us by the way--their existence and influence would end and I'm almost positive that they feel bitter about having to fight this way. . . . Mr. Fadhil and his brother Mohammed write a blog, Iraq the Model, from Baghdad. Posted by: Mike 2007-10-08 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=201726 |