Desperate Al Qaeda In Iraq Still Using Intimidation
An Iraqi volunteer guards the scene of the Adhamiya bombing on Jan. 7.
From a Newsweek article by Lennox Samuels:
The severed head of the Iraqi man rests on the counter of a bamboo stall. His hair is close-cropped, the mustache is trim, and there’s a bullet wound in his right cheek.
A note placed alongside the head is handwritten in Arabic; it proclaims “Martyr from the CLC”—the acronym for the Concerned Local Citizens groups that have teamed up with American forces to fight insurgents. The American soldiers from Bravo Company who made the gruesome discovery have just come from another mission, one that involved rousing Iraqi farmer Basel Diab Muhammed in the wee hours Sunday and checking the shrapnel scars he sustained escaping from gunmen who kidnapped him a month ago. Now, as they look at the head, two Iraqi Army soldiers confirm that the victim was indeed a member of the CLC. Later a quick exam by a medic at the combat outpost indicates that the beheaded man had been in his late 20s or early 30s.
Both the kidnapping and the beheading signal a grim new strategy by Al Qaeda in Iraq: an attempt to intimidate the CLCs and the Iraqis who support them. On Monday a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in the Azamiyah area of northern Baghdad. As people were evacuating the wounded, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives just yards away, near a CLC office. Among the six reported killed in the attack was Riyadh al-Samarrai, head of a local CLC, who was apparently a target. The suicide bomber reportedly walked up to Samarrai and embraced him before setting off his explosives. “There’s no question that the CLCs are the focus of their attacks now, even more than we are,” says Capt. Travis Batty, 3rd Platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. “They know that these are the guys who can identify them. We could have Qaeda [cadres] walk right between our Strykers [armored personnel vehicles] on their way to do something bad and not know who they are. But the CLCs know them and point them out to us. That’s why Al Qaeda in Iraq are going after them.”
For Al Qaeda the stakes are high. The citizens groups, also known as “awakening councils,” have helped reduce violent attacks by 60 percent in Diyala province, once a Qaeda stronghold and a particularly savage battleground, says Brig. Gen. James Boozer. Azamiyah, where the Monday attack took place, was also a safe haven for the insurgents until last year, when some citizens decided to join forces with the Americans to force them out.
CLC involvement has been a crucial element in helping U.S. troops stabilize volatile areas. Before the arrival of some 30,000 new American troops, the military often found itself in the frustrating position of driving insurgents from urban areas only to see them return once the Americans had moved on. Now U.S. commanders have the manpower to set up combat outposts in strategic areas as they evict Al Qaeda.
Read the full Newsweek article here.
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the enemy also uses U.S. MSM to spred their treachery,, the washington post is saying that 2 soldiers killed by an iraqi soldier were beating a pregnant women and he was defending her.. there is no facts to support their story and is being used to undermine our HEROS in time of war,, more al queda/democrat lies to support michael moore/dan rather
January 9th, 2008 at 10:25 amSo what else is new. Terrorism is part of the Islamic tactical manual.
Sounds like AQ is practicing the tactic spoken of in the Qur’an 2:191.
Iraqis have a choice: accept the status quo of AQ and their facist ideology…or become free men by fighting the mustifoon irhabis and taking back their towns, cities, and bazars from the Nazis by force.
A side note: This is for millenialists: In the end Iraq will ally with Israel. So, there is much hope for Iraq.
Keep up the fight. Destiny is on our/and their side…not AQ’s.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am