Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled

By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 15, 2007;


The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

There is widespread agreement that AQI has suffered major blows over the past three months. Among the indicators cited is a sharp drop in suicide bombings, the group's signature attack, from more than 60 in January to around 30 a month since July. Captures and interrogations of AQI leaders over the summer had what a senior military intelligence official called a "cascade effect," leading to other killings and captures. The flow of foreign fighters through Syria into Iraq has also diminished, although officials are unsure of the reason and are concerned that the broader al-Qaeda network may be diverting new recruits to Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The deployment of more U.S. and Iraqi forces into AQI strongholds in Anbar province and the Baghdad area, as well as the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters to combat AQI operatives in those locations, has helped to deprive the militants of a secure base of operations, U.S. military officials said. They are less and less coordinated, more and more fragmented," Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said recently. Describing frayed support structures and supply lines, Odierno estimated that the group's capabilities have been "degraded" by 60 to 70 percent since the beginning of the year.

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, chief of the Joint Special Operations Command's operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said. But Adm. William J. Fallon, the chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, is urging restraint, the official said. The military intelligence official, like others interviewed for this report, refused to speak on the record about Iraq assessments and strategy.

Senior U.S. commanders on the ground, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, have long complained that the Central Command, along with the CIA, is too negative in its analyses. On this issue, however, Petraeus agrees with Fallon, the military intelligence official said.

Source:

We have been saying this for months:

Aug 7. al Qaeda's Ghost
Sept 16, USA winning
Sept 19, al Qaeda on the run
Sept 20, End of al Qaeda
Sept 28, A Quiet Triumph
Sept 30, al Qaeda on the ropes
Oct, 07 al Qaeda dying

Secret ops against AQ and Taliban.

Gerald
This does not mean they can't mount a WMD attack, still.
But they are dying.

USA has been acting as Islam's proxy for al Qaeda.
USA has been protecting the Ummah,
only Islam has the power to take out al Qaeda.
USA slows them and keeps them small and ineffective.
Islam will KILL al Qaeda.


al Qaeda has turned "jihad" into a dirty word.