The Redhunter

From the Washington Post comes a description of the letter, and a clear and concise list of Al Qaeda's objectives:

First, expel American forces from Iraq. Second, establish a caliphate over as much of Iraq as possible. Third, extend the jihad to neighboring countries, with specific reference to Egypt and the Levant -- a term that describes Syria and Lebanon. And finally, war against Israel.

U.S. officials say they were struck by the letter's emphasis on the centrality of Iraq to al Qaeda's long-term mission. One of the two excerpts provided by officials quotes Zawahiri, a former doctor from Egypt, telling his Jordanian-born ally, "I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam's history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era."

But bin Laden's deputy also purportedly makes clear that the war would not end with an American withdrawal and that anything other than religious rule in Iraq would be dangerous.

"And it is that the Mujaheddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal. We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us," the letter reportedly says.

In one indication of tensions between the al Qaeda leadership and its Iraqi division, U.S. officials said, Zawahiri writes about the need to maintain popular support. He is critical of Shiite Muslims and says a clash between the Sunni-dominated movement and the Shiite sect is inevitable, officials said, but he rebukes the leader of Iraq's insurgency for its brutal tactics -- noting that hostages can just as effectively be killed with bullets rather than by beheading, officials said.

Wretchard, author of Belmont Club, concludes from this that

Implicit within Zawarhiri's message is an admission that the insurgency is headed for defeat unless it changes it's policies and thereby its fortunes. Al Qaeda must have viewed with mounting alarm the increasing numbers of Iraqi troops that the US can field against them. The campaigns against the Euphrates and Tigris lines and the seize and hold operations now in progress must be hurting them. Therefore, despite their theological antipathy for the Shi'ites it must have occurred to them that their car bombs, beheadings, outrages and gratuitous murders -- all dutifully reported by a media thinking it might chill American resolve -- were working against them; this brutality was driving the Shia and the Kurds into American arms. And now Zawahiri admits this policy may be leading to their defeat.

Austin Bay concurs that "Iraq has become a political and information battle that Zawahiri realizes Al-Qaida may be losing." Further, Bay reminds us,

In February 2004, Zarqawi acknowledged a democratic Iraqi state would mean defeat for Al-Qaida in Iraq. To defeat democracy, he has pursued a strategy of relentless, nihilistic bloodbath. It's a brutal irony of war: In doing so, he is losing the war for the hearts and minds.

Much to their dismay, we are not leaving Iraq as they hoped we would. We may or may not have as many troops as we need, we may or may not have always pursued the correct strategy, but as far as Al Qaeda is concerned, we are still there.

And just in case anyone doubted it, yes they really do want to establish an old-time caliphate throughout the Middle East, and destroy the state of Israel.

Another Message of Desperation?

This morning MEMRI posted a message by The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), which they describe as "an Islamist organization that posts online messages, usually associated with Al-Qaeda." The GIMF message was originally posted August 29, 2005, "on various Islamist forums" and is described as "a document dealing with the warfare policy of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."

The document describes how victory will be achieved:

The American forces will be forced to withdraw when the fatalities among their soldiers increase. They are, [in fact], numerous [even today], but the American media insists on distorting [the numbers].

It should be noted that Colin Powell's book, which deals with the mistakes made by the U.S. in the Vietnam War, explicitly states that one of the mistakes was distorting the number of American fatalities, [a measure] that was taken, he says, in order to preserve the morale of the American forces and to avoid an [undesirable] reaction among the American people.

What they are saying is that the American government and media are lying about the number of American casualties. I've never seen any credible evidence of this. If our government was lying, the media would have picked up on it by now. That the terrorists do not distinguish between our government and media is characteristic of totalitarian ideologies.

This message tells me that Al Qaeda is unhappy with the their military campaign. They know they are not killing as many Americans as they need to, and their followers probably know it too. Their may be dissention in their ranks, and in order to quell it they must claim that they are doing better than the American press is reporting, which they no doubt read.

As Jim Dunnigan pointed out last July, "Most Iraqis have become increasingly hostile to al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign". While in the beginning they could draw Iraqi recruits, now they depend on "foreigners" for their troops. Further, they are seeing a decline in what is called "institutional memory"; as our forces kill or capture their "sergeants" and more experienced members, those who fill their ranks do not have the benefit of their experience.

Colonel Robert Brown is the commander of the Stryker-equipped 1st Brigade, of the 25th Infantry Division. They conducted offensive operations last August and September in Northwestern Iraq, near Mosul. At a DOD press conference last month, he spoke about the decline in insurgent capabilities. Initially, however, the insurgency fought well:

"There's a significant difference from when we got here last October. Last October, we faced a foreign fighter that was very well-trained. I remember watching attacks out -- we had an attack that involved about 60 foreign fighters in a pretty complex ambush. By complex I mean three or four forms of engagement. They'll hit you with an IED, small arms, mortars -- a very complex attack. We saw that regularly in November and December. We also defeated -- in one of those fights, we killed 40 terrorists, and we did not lose anybody, and we defeated them every time they tried to do that against us. We really worked hard and aggressively at getting out."

The insurgents were tough and well trained, and although we were successful in our missions, it had to be admitted that the ememy performed well. This, however, changed:

"And as we got to February and March, we saw a completely different foreign fighter. We've captured Libyans. We've captured Saudi, Yemenis, Algerians. And many of these -- one Libyan that we captured about a month and a half ago -- he was clearly brainwashed. And he was told that, you know, what was going on here and brainwashed to come and be a -- what he thought was -- he was going to be a foreign fighter against this crusade against the Muslim religion. He got here. He saw that was not correct. They told he was going to be a suicide martyr. He said he didn't want to do that. When we happened to capture him, several other foreign fighters and the cell leader that was orchestrating them, he was very happy to talk to us about what he had seen and what they had done.

And very interesting that younger foreign fighter that we're seeing now -- very poorly trained. We would call them more like RPGs for hire. And we believe it's the -- we know that the leadership is severely disrupted. Again, from -- about 25 percent of the attacks were very complex prior to elections, as I described. Now we're down to five percent are complex. And we're at the lowest number of attacks by far over the last three months. And that is -- clearly the foreign network is disrupted. The leadership is severely disrupted. We captured Abu Talha, the number-two al Qaeda leader in the north of Iraq. And right after that we got Abu Bara, Madhi Musa (sp), Abu Zab (sp), the next six leaders that would step up and take over. Nobody's taken over now. It's not a very popular position because if they step up, they get captured or killed. And so they're really disrupted, totally different."

Something else started to happen that we've seen time and time again, the population of the liberated area started to turn in the terrorists.

"The people have -- are fed up with the terrorist acts. I mean, I -- you know, I was -- witnessed one suicide VBIED that killed innocent women and children, and I've never seen evil like that. And the people -- Iraqi people saw that, and they know -- it's very clear to them that their government wants a brighter future for them, the Iraqi security forces want a brighter future, and the terrorists offer nothing but fear and intimidation and a very poor future"

Col Brown goes on and on, so be sure and read the whole thing.

The Other Side

So without an attempt to find out what the other side thinks, what they are saying, and what we are finding out about them you will never find out what is happening in Iraq.

To be sure, as Col. H. R. McMaster, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said to a reporter from Reuters in another press conference last month after being accused of painting too rosy a picture, "Nothing's rosy in Iraq, okay?" However, the enemy was "on the run".

And, as I said in We're Winning back in April, we're not out of the woods yet. But progress has been steady.

Oh, and another thing: Chester says we're winning too. That's another site you should be reading.