| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Dead Children Killing al Qaeda |
| 2005-07-14 |
| 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 |
| #8 Same thing happened to Pablo Escobar in Columbia. Law enforcement put some pressure on him, but Los Pepes put the lives of his family and associates in check. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-07-14 14:37 |
| #7 Verlaine in Iraq, there is plenty of room for those Sunni's in Saudi Arabia. Infilitration routes work both ways. Everyone would be happier if they left. |
| Posted by: Neutral Observer 2005-07-14 13:51 |
| #6 These people are monsters. Deliberately killing children, again and again, does not show you as a warrior of God, but rather an emmissary from Hell. How normal Muslims can support, actively or passively, groups who do this is beyond me. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2005-07-14 12:16 |
| #5 The temperature in Baghdad appears to be heating up for Sunnis and anyone with ties to the former regime. Two Sunni contacts of mine have for several weeks told me "things are getting worse" around Baghdad. When I delve, it's clear it's not the attacks by so-called insurgents (down), or street crime (varies, but no trend or change), but something else -- Shi'a death squad activity against Sunnis and even Shi'a with a Ba'athist aroma. When I hear this I think "hmmm, I'm not so sure this qualifies as bad news, or as 'worse'". Bodies have been turning up. Sunni bodies. Including some gruesomely disfigured. There's been a sustained low level of revenge killings going on almost since the outset, but now the incidents are larger and making the news. Little mention so far in the western press. But soon there will probably be a breathless feature with dark forebodings .... quotes from Sunnis who speak of a civil war, of living in fear, blah blah blah. All in the usual things-are-imperfect-therefore-quagmire!-miscalculation!-mistake!-disaster! mode. But when these stories start to come out, just remember that if the fear is induced in the right parts of the Sunni community, it's exactly what's needed, what's been missing, and the key to accelerating the decline of the opposition, already well in progress. |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-07-14 12:03 |
| #4 I assume the Democrats want us to pull out of Iraq and close Gitmo so that nice people like the 'scum' who killed these children can have a safe haven in Iraq to launch more 9/11 attacks against the US. |
| Posted by: freddy 2005-07-14 10:55 |
| #3 the terrorists may be unpopular with the iraqis but at least they have Michael Moore and Ward Churchill and a good chuck of the dailykosites and demoundergrounders on their side |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-07-14 10:38 |
| #2 The terrorists haven't had a solid base anywhere since Fallujah. They are loosing, and they know it. Now they are hoping to terrorize the Iraqis into passivity, but even that is now backfiring with all the Iraqi deaths. Now children on top of that? There may be stonings before the week is out. :D |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-07-14 09:34 |
| #1 But the American vehicle was surrounded by over fifty Iranian children,.... Can we assume that StrategyPage meant Iraqi children? How to win hearts and minds Al Qaeda style. |
| Posted by: GK 2005-07-14 09:14 |