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| Iraq |
| US gains against Iraq Al Qaeda |
| 2007-07-30 |
| US forces have made significant progress in weakening Al Qaeda in Iraq, but it is not yet clear whether that will have a lasting impact on the broader sectarian conflict there, US analysts say. In what may be the most far reaching development, Sunni tribal leaders and some insurgent groups have sided with US forces as they pressed a series of offensives against the Iraq arm of Al Qaeda, known as AQI. “The Al Qaeda piece is certainly the main bit of good news on the military front, and I think it’s extraordinarily good news,” said Michael O’Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution. “And it’s become much more effective because of the collaboration of the Iraqis,” he told AFP. A longtime observer and critic of the way the war has been run, O’Hanlon returned this week from Iraq impressed by the broad shift in Sunni sentiment against AQI in areas where it once was a dominant force. “The US military has cultivated magnificent contacts”, he said. “Although the best catalyst of all may have been Al Qaeda itself, which has been so exceedingly brutal even with its fellow Sunnis that it finally turned them against Al Qaeda”, he added. The turnaround has been most striking in Sunni communities in western Iraq that have fought the US occupation almost from the start more than four years ago. Better relations with Sunnis has helped the US military generate better intelligence, recruit local security forces to hold communities after US forces move on, and gain allies who often know the enemy better than the Americans do. Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno recently pointed out that a Sunni insurgent group, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, tipped US forces attacking AQI’s stronghold in Diyala province to the presence of 148 deeply buried land mines. “That is significant, and that is worth reaching out to these groups, absolutely worth reaching out to these groups,” he told reporters. The US military has focused troops recently deployed to Iraq in a new force buildup on AQI because it is believed to be the main source of the massive suicide and car bombings that kept the country in a permanent state of chaos. US commanders say the AQI leadership has been disrupted by the offensives, and the group is struggling. But devastating car bombings still routinely rip through Baghdad, killing large numbers of civilians, a nearly daily reminder of the group’s tenacity and resilience. Its core membership numbers only in the hundreds but it can draw on a pool of several thousand part-time fighters, a US Defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Military officials say it is led mainly by a small group of foreign fighters but its rank and file is 95 percent Iraqi. Still, for all its destructiveness, the Al Qaeda in Iraq group represents only a fraction of the insurgency in Iraq, reportedly accounting for just 15 percent of attacks in the first half of 2007. “There are still huge sectarian problems, and I don’t think we have as good an answer to those”, said O’Hanlon. “Although we have some short term progress, I don’t think we have a good transition strategy for how the Iraqis can handle it on their own”, he said. Loren Thompson, a military expert with the Lexington Institute here, said the Sunnis and Shiites may never be reconciled. “But recognising that sectarian split, there is a special quality to suicide bombers that relatively few people on either side bring to the fight, a sort of crazy brutality that makes it impossible to come up with any stabilization plan that will be a success,” he said. “This is my oblique way of saying if we can suppress the suicide fanatics, everything else becomes easier. For the first time in years, we are making tangible progress in reducing the violence, and providing a reasonable environment to allow the political leaders to compromise.” |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Crosspatch: I think we're seeing a quiet 180 on the part of Big Media. See also NewsBusters. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-07-30 13:55 |
| #2 Why this distinction "AQI"? It's just Al Qaeda. Anything to blur what is at stake. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-07-30 11:42 |
| #1 I am amazed. The NYT is reporting pretty much the same thing! LINK HERE |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2007-07-30 02:13 |