Al Qaeda in Diyala
Despite recent gains, Al Qaeda is still making plenty of trouble in Iraq:
This is the front line of the war with Al-Qaeda. In other parts of Iraq their fighters are like ghosts, using car bombs and remotely triggered mines to deadly effect but rarely revealing themselves. In Diyala, Al-Qaeda troops are seizing villages in house-to-house battles that have plunged the province into an unacknowledged war.There are several points to note here:
- Despite liberal protestations a year ago about Al Qaeda being a boogy-man conjured up by the Bush administration, Al Qaeda is and remains our #1 foe in Iraq
- The "Surge" was meant to stabilize Baghdad and its immediate surroundings, as well as providing some help in Anbar province (to the west of Baghdad). Diyala is to the northeast of Baghdad, extending all the way to Iran. Baquba is its capital, only 30 miles from Baghdad, and that city was taken back from Al Qaeda last June. Unfortunately, the resources available don't permit pursuit of Al Qaeda much past Baquba at this time. Again, that was understood when the Surge was planned.
- Despite Harry Reid's desperate appeal to the "civil war" in Iraq, the majority of the violence now has nothing to do with a civil war. Al Qaeda is now attacking Sunnis and Shi'ites alike. In fact:
Unlike the Awakening, which is made up mostly of former members of Al-Qaeda and Sunni tribes who welcomed the extremist group until it started killing those who would not adhere to its strict Islamic regime, Diyala’s sheikhs are both Sunni and Shi’ite.
“We decided that both the Shi’ite and Sunni are suffering from Al-Qaeda,” said Sheikh Ali Zuheiri, the local leader. “We needed to make one group together to fight this evil."
- Once again the brilliant strategy of Al Qaeda is uniting the population against them - a process that is also starting in Afghanistan.
As the US forces advance in Diyala, they have come across evidence of the shocking brutality of the Al-Qaeda reign. On Thursday, Hertling revealed that his troops had found a torture centre in a farm north of Muq-dadiya (about 20 miles past Baquba). Chains hung from ceilings and walls, an iron bed was still attached to a car battery to give electric shocks, and bloody knives and swords were left behind by the torturers. Twenty-six bodies were found in a mass grave nearby.Al Qaedans are not advocates of Islam, but advocates of their particular brand of Islam and their political supremacy, and they will treat their fellow Muslims like meat to get what they want. The people of Iraq have had to learn this in a very painful way. One hopes that Muslims around the world can learn the same lesson by example, rather than by experience.