Posted on 05/04/2006 3:16:24 PM PDT by Dog
ABC News has obtained a document seized by U.S. and British Special Forces during a recent raid of an alleged Zarqawi safe house about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad in the town of Yusufiyah. This was the raid where the military believes it narrowly missed capturing Zarqawi himself.
The five-page document appears to sketch out a new strategy for Al Qaeda in Iraq: Reduce attacks in the Sunni dominated areas in the West and concentrate attacks inside Baghdad.
"We will reduce our operations against [the Americans] in our areas for the near future, and will perform our work against them in Baghdad itself," the document says.
It also calls for attacks on the Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, "Move the battle to the Shia depths," the document says. "Put pressure on them to leave their areas."
It states the strategy is aimed at two goals:
1) Incite people against the Shia and provoke sectarian war.
2) Bringing down the government or at least weakening it (and then destroying the Shias' four year rule).
There is quite a bit of detail in the document with targets mentioned, and tactics ("plant [explosives] by night; explode by day").
There is also some interesting self-criticism.
The document complains that the losses of American forces in Baghdad "are hardly worth mentioning" compared to American losses in the Western provinces. And, in the concluding paragraph, the document says the "rank and file" of the mujahideen in Baghdad know their leadership does not have "a broad view" or "a well-knit plan" and that "this has led to strategic losses for us."
The document was seized by "Task Force 145" — the top secret special operations group (made up of the military's elite operators, including Delta Force and Navy SEALs as well as British Special Forces) that heads up the hunt for Zarqawi.
The Al Qaeda playbook!
Uh oh...
Thats a Good Find
They've tried repeatedly and failed.
The media and Al Qaeda is soooo disappointed.
And the Democrats what us to leave .. when the enemy is losing
Ummm .. shows who side the liberals are on
Jeeze why do they release this information to the media? It would be good if they could keep this stuff secret so that Zarqawi doesn't know we are on to him!
Hope it's not a satire hoax like that earlier deal on ABC...
the Tony Snow 'leaked' email.
Let the Iraqis know the game plan and then let them start "cleaning their own house." They need to find those within Iraq that are protecting these animals and start destroying them one by one or nest by nest. Surely, the Iraqis don't have Liberals (like ours) that will whine and cry when their enemies are killed.
It's interesting that this was leaked to ABC. Why?
I guess it's to warn Baghdad residents, especially Shi'ites of the game plan.
How exactly did ABC news "obtain" a document about top secret military activities? Was it declassified?
Yes ,Good Point
Someone should send this info to John Murtha.
The MSM is delighted to have the latest version of the playbook so that they can continue to support AQ's strategy as effectively as possible.
Then we include the tidbit about the leaders not knowing what is going and are causing losses of the muj with their plans.
Someone is planning the Zman like a fiddle..
Planning=playing.
This could be an authorized leak...
They've tried repeatedly and failed.
Golly whillikers, you mean Iraq isn't "on the brink" of a civil war?
What a letdown. I really, really trusted the MSM analysis on that one. MSM analysis is a regular quagmire, isn't it.
It is a captured document, thus is not considered classified in and of itsself. The capture of it could be made classified, however the announcement of the capture can be made at the descresion of the US military command.
It is an official release via the news media.
Depending on how well Zarqawi's organization communicates, they'd probably know that we had it. When we assaulted that house, they know they lost all information contained within it.
But perhaps not. In any event, a decision was made by us to release this publicly. It may have been solely to squeeze Zarqawi, but it also seems designed to demonstrate his weakness to the Iraqi public. It's a public relations assault, too.
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