About 6,000 Al Qaida fighters have been killed since the beginning of the Iraq war five years ago, half of whom died in suicide operations, according to a top official in the Iraqi army. The official said the killings took place between 2003 and April 2008.The high number of Al Qaida deaths was "a result of cooperation between Iraqi security forces and US forces," Gen Anwar Ameen, Inspector General at the Iraqi Defence Ministry, told Gulf News.
He said Al Qaida members were killed either by US or Iraqi forces, or killed themselves in suicide bombings. "This is a defeat for the organisation, not only in Iraq but also worldwide. I am certain Al Qaida will need decades to be able to again recruit the number [of fighters] it lost in Iraq," he added.
Anwar said Al Qaida no longer had the ability to recruit as many suicide bombers as it did between 2003 and 2005, which explains the decline in the number of suicide operations in Baghdad, from twenty per week a couple of years ago to the present three or four every one to two weeks, according to him.
American forces in Iraq are likely to see this as positive news, in the belief that defeating Al Qaida in Iraq would lead to its defeat in Afghanistan.
But some Iraqi military analysts think otherwise. One such analyst,
"That means Iraq will be turned into a large camp for Al Qaida to train and recruit fighters," said Al Maliki. "But if it does not achieve this, it does not mean that the organisation in Afghanistan or Pakistan has been defeated. Iraq is part of Al Qaida's strategy, but not its [entire strategy]."
Others also think the Iraqi and US armies have no reason to gloat about the 6,000 Al Qaida members who have been killed in Iraq. Adnan Al Janabi, an officer in the former Iraqi army, told Gulf News: "I think 6,000 Al Qaida elements [killed], compared to more than 4,000 American casualties, despite the American superiority in intelligence, weapons and surveillance, also represents a blow to the American forces."