Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Al Qaeda Discusses Losing Iraq
Strategy Page ^ | 5/27/08

Posted on 05/27/2008 3:33:52 PM PDT by Dawnsblood

Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups, who were trying in vain to scare the Americans out of the country.

Today, al Qaeda has been shattered, with most of its leadership and foot soldiers dead, captured or moved from Iraq. As a result, al Qaeda attacks have declined more than 90 percent. Worse, most of their Iraqi Sunni Arab allies have turned on them, or simply quit. This "betrayal" is handled carefully on the terrorist web sites, for it is seen as both shameful, and perhaps recoverable.

This defeat was not as sudden as it appeared to be, and some Islamic terrorist web sites have been discussing the problem for several years. The primary cause has been Moslems killed as a side effect of attacks on infidel troops, Iraqi security forces and non-Sunnis. Al Qaeda plays down the impact of this, calling the Moslem victims "involuntary martyrs." But that's a minority opinion. Most Moslems, and many other Islamic terrorists, see this as a surefire way to turn the Moslem population against the Islamic radicals. That's what happened earlier in Algeria, Afghanistan, Egypt and many other places. It's really got nothing to do with religion. The phenomenon hits non-Islamic terrorists as well (like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA).

The senior al Qaeda leadership saw the problem, and tried to convince the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership to cool it. That didn't work. As early as 2004, some Sunni Arabs were turning on al Qaeda because of the "involuntary martyrs" problem. The many dead Shia Arab civilians led to a major terror campaign by the Shia majority. They controlled the government, had the Americans covering their backs, and soon half the Sunni Arab population were refugees.

Meanwhile, the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership was out of control. Most of these guys are really out there, at least in terms of fanaticism and extremism. This led to another fatal error. They declared the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq" in late 2006. This was an act of bravado, and touted as the first step in the re-establishment of the caliphate (a global Islamic state, ruled over by God's representative on earth, the caliph.) The caliphate has been a fiction for over a thousand years. Early on, the Islamic world was split by ethnic and national differences, and the first caliphate fell apart after a few centuries. Various rulers have claimed the title over the centuries, but since 1924, when the Turks gave it up (after four centuries), no one of any stature has taken it up. So when al Qaeda "elected" a nobody as the emir of the "Islamic State of Iraq", and talked about this being the foundation of the new caliphate, even many pro-al Qaeda Moslems were aghast. When al Qaeda could not, in 2007, exercise any real control over the parts of Iraq they claimed as part of the new Islamic State, it was the last straw. The key supporters, battered by increasingly effective American and Iraqi attacks, dropped their support for al Qaeda, and the terrorist organization got stomped to bits by the "surge offensive" of last year. The final insult was delivered by the former Iraqi Sunni Arab allies, who quickly switched sides, and sometimes even worked with the Americans (more so than the Shia dominated Iraqi security forces) to hunt down and kill al Qaeda operators.

If you can read Arabic, you can easily find these pro-terrorism sites, and see for yourself how al Qaeda is trying to explain its own destruction to its remaining supporters. While it's common to assume the Information War has been going against the West, this was not the case when you checked with what was going on inside the enemy camp.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; alqaedainiraq; awakening; basra; defeat; iran; iraq; islam; mahdiarmy; sadr; sadrcity; terror
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 last
To: Republic Can

If the MSM was worth a damn, this information would be their lead story. But they aren’t, and it isn’t.


61 posted on 05/28/2008 7:21:36 AM PDT by Steve0113 (Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -A.L.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dawnsblood
If you can read Arabic, you can easily find these pro-terrorism sites

I wouldn't recommend surfing the web for pro-terrorist sites in arabic. You might find your IP address logged by the authorities.

However you won't have any problems with the authorities if you read the various pro-terrorist websites in English such as the NYet Times or DUmmies Undergound.

62 posted on 05/28/2008 7:47:25 AM PDT by weegee (We cant keep our homes on 72 at all times & just expect that other countries are going to say OK -BO)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PGalt

My I also suggest

The Unraveling
The jihadist revolt against bin Laden.
Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
http://www.wideawakes.info/community/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=11415


63 posted on 05/28/2008 7:48:02 AM PDT by Valin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: Valin

Thanks for the link, Valin. Read it...here...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2021432/posts

Some interesting comments at the source...here...

http://www.tnr.com/talkback.html?id=702bf6d5-a37a-4e3e-a491-fd72bf6a9da1

Thanks for all of the articles you have posted at FR and your commentary.


64 posted on 05/28/2008 8:03:06 AM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: Valin; Robert Spencer

The naive New Republic?...posted by Robert Spencer at 10:41am today...commentary...here...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021203.php#comments

Many thanks to Robert Spencer and the OUTSTANDING posters at jihadwatch.

from The Spectator...here...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/735986/dangerous-naivety.thtml


65 posted on 05/28/2008 9:05:00 AM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: PGalt

Thanks to Melanie Phillips!


66 posted on 05/28/2008 9:09:03 AM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: All

Great news! Now in a few years when we begin to draw down CNN can film a couple of guys in masks shooting AK’s into the air and proclaim our hummiliating defeat.


67 posted on 05/28/2008 11:35:33 AM PDT by The Toll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: reefdiver
Bring in the vacuum pumps mateys! Yea. Suck the air from em.
Somewhere along the line most business ventures must make a decision on how best to sell their products and services. As more folks wise up and give these bums feedback they will either ease up or fall by the wayside.
68 posted on 05/28/2008 2:49:20 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Duncan Hunter was our best choice...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: PGalt

The naive New Republic?...posted by Robert Spencer at 10:41am today...commentary...here...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021203.php#comments

Why doesn’t the replys of the simpletons at jihadwatch suprise me?


69 posted on 05/29/2008 5:26:29 AM PDT by Valin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: Valin

There are people for whom evil means only a mal-adjustment with things, a wrong correspondence of one’s life with the environment. Such evil as this is curable, at least in principle, upon the natural plane… . But there are others for whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things, but something more radical and general, a wrongness or vice in his essential nature, which no alteration of the environment, or any superficial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatural remedy. —W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

...from your homepage.

Thanks, Valin.


70 posted on 05/29/2008 6:15:53 AM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson