Recent Victories in the War on Terror

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 24, 2004 | GEORGE MELLOAN

[OESY]

...The Iraqi interim government of Ayad Allawi, given sovereignty by the U.S. in June, has been establishing itself as a reliable U.S. ally. U.S. forces and Iraqi troops and police have finally cornered Muqtada al Sadr, the wild-eyed ayatollah who wants to turn Iraq into another Iran. [F]fighters appeared to be melting away ...in a sacred Shiite shrine in Najaf, although the battle continues....

...a wave of arrests of terrorism suspects in the U.S., Britain and Pakistan....

Ashcroft announced the indictments of three men alleged to have been aiding Hamas....

[I]t is impossible to assess with any accuracy the extent to which terrorist networks have been damaged.... What most agree on is that if al Qaeda tries to strike the U.S. again, it will try to make the attack as spectacular as the one on 9/11/01....

The insurgency aimed at bringing about a U.S. failure in Iraq is fueled by both of those neighboring states. The foreign fighters who have given the U.S. so much trouble in Fallujah were mostly infiltrated from Syria. New suspicions are being raised that Syria cooperated with Saddam Hussein by offering him a place to hide his weapons of mass destruction before the allied invasion.

These theories are based on a review of satellite footage showing heavy truck traffic across that border just before the invasion. Be that as it may, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, which is under Syrian control, has for many years been a major base for terrorists operating against Israel and other countries....

It is a mark of how much the losses of Sadr perturb the Iranians that last Friday Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called for an urgent meeting of Muslim countries to discuss the "catastrophe" in Iraq, meaning that his side is losing the key battle for Najaf....