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StrategyPage, as usual, as a well grounded take on what's happening in Iraq.
The al Qaeda organization in Iraq is coming apart. Two years of effort to build an informer network, and train and organize an Iraqi police force and army, have paid off. There are more leads coming in than the Iraqis and Americans can act on. But there are enough Iraqi police and SWAT teams to raid the most likely targets. There are enough Iraqi police to allow American troops to move into rural areas of western Iraq that have been left to anti-government Sunni Arab tribes for the last two years. The shock of these attacks over the last few months has led to the capture of several senior al Qaeda leaders in Iraq, and the capture of many documents and computer files. This led to even more raids, and the capture of more leads. The al Qaeda response was to carry out as many suicide attacks as possible, as soon as possible. This was driven partly by necessity, because more bomb workshops were being raided, so the stockpile of car bombs had to be either used, or the police would capture them. Now, many of those workshops are being captured. Although some are car repair operations that do suicide car bombs on the side, in plain sight, many of these are being turned in by informers, who then collect a reward. While the rewards for tips works, the desire to eliminate the terrorist attacks is an even greater incentive.Posted by Ted at May 26, 2005 9:15 PM