“The Times” of London on victory in Iraq:
American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.
A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.
Last Friday I joined the 2nd Iraqi Division as it supported local police in a house-to-house search for one such bomb after intelligence pointed to a large explosion today. Even in the district of Zanjali, previously a hotbed of the insurgency, it was possible to accompany an Iraqi colonel on foot through streets of breeze-block houses studded with bullet holes. Hundreds of houses were searched without resistance but no bomb was found, only 60kg of explosives.
American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.
Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism. “They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
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Posted by JonJayRay on July 6, 2008 9:06 am
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Syndicate Me
After 5 years of publishing unrelenting pro-terrorist, anti-American propaganda, they’re whining about the fact that we’re on to their disgusting little pro-Osama game.
Boo-hoo-frickin’-hoo.
But hey, let’s test it out, why don’t we? Why don’t you guys, for once in your miserable, treasonous, defeatist lives, make a movie that is unapologetically pro-American, a movie telling the truth about our outstanding men and women and their struggle overseas, the real reasons they fight, their real successes and the traitor morons on the home front trying to throw it all away for nothing other than political expedience? A movie that explains why we fight and, just as importantly, tells the real, inconvenient, ugly truth about the animals that we’re fighting and the diseased “religion” that animates them.
Make that movie, then let’s see if THAT one tanks too at the box office. I’ll eat my hat if it does.