Posted on 11/29/2006 6:48:24 PM PST by FairOpinion
Baghdad, Nov 29: US and Iraqi forces have killed or captured at least 7,000 al-Qaeda fighters in the past two years, with 30 "senior leaders' taken out of action since July, a US military spokesman said yesterday.
The news comes hard on the heels of a leaked US marine report that states US forces cannot defeat the al-Qaeda-led insurgency in the vast western desert province of al-Anbar.
"Since October 2004, we have now killed or captured over 7,000 al-Qaeda terrorists," coalition spokesman Major General William Caldwell told journalists.
"Coalition and Iraqi security forces have made significant progress in dismantling the terrorist network," he said, adding that since July some 30 "senior level" al-Qaeda have also been killed or captured.
Also, in the past two weeks, a series of raids throughout central and northern Iraq netted 11 leaders of the al-Qaeda-allied Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group, he said.
Caldwell disputed the leaked assessment of the situation in Anbar, which was reported by an American newspaper.
"If anything, there has been a turn of events in the past few months towards the positive," he said.
Citing a senior US intelligence official, the paper said "the fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" described in the August report remain true in November.
Another Iraq success story you don't find on the NYT front pages.
ping
A positive Iraq article posted on FR?
Not fair. They only killed 5,500 of our people. Mean, bad America. Waah.
ROFL
How many are just plain dead? The Dem/Libs will be releasing the captured ones no doubt.
We need to put a couple or three zeros on that number to win.
Great observation, I`m going to barrow it
7,000 Al Qaeda's!
Thank God these guys are too nuts to know they shouldn't carry ID.
7,000 Al Qaeda's. Well, it's a start....
Thanks -- I always search, but sometimes not all articles show up.
But good news can stand having it posted two days in a row. Lord knows all the bad news is repeated everywhere hourly.
Ditto.
Oh yeah...just wanted the other comments to be aired..;-)
Actually, a lot of positive articles regarding Iraq are posted on FR.
There is the FReeper Canteen.
SandRat and several others post articles from DefenseLink.mil news.
I post from DefenseLink news on The Threat Matrix.
My personal web site posts links to MilBlogs and Hot Air and whitehouse.gov news which also has positive news.
Sorry for the lengthy response, but FYI.
Thank you for the ping FairOpinion.
I appreciate it.
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