By Suadad al-SalhyPosted 2010/10/26 at 8:43 am EDT
BAGHDAD, Oct. 26, 2010 (Reuters) — Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch has evolved into a homegrown, more lethal and bolder insurgency comprised of Iraqi fighters hardened in U.S. prisons and posing a challenge to Iraqi forces, military officials say.
The insurgency has been strategically weakened by the deaths of leaders, and both its numbers and the territory in which it can maneuver have shrunk since 2006-07, when Sunni tribal chiefs turned on it and joined forces with the U.S. military.
But what Iraqi officials call the “third generation” of al Qaeda in Iraq may be more difficult to fight than before because its fighters can blend in, know the weaknesses of Iraqi society, and are more interested in making a spectacular splash with their attacks than in battlefield victories.
Their assaults are aimed at grabbing attention and rattling the population at a time when sectarian tensions are fraught because of the failure of politicians to agree on a new Iraqi government seven months after an inconclusive election.
“We face the third generation of al-Qaeda now, a generation that mostly graduated from (U.S. detention camps) Bucca, Cropper and other such places,” said Major General Hassan al-Baidhani, chief of staff for the Baghdad operations command.
Al Qaeda has shown “a new type of boldness,” attacking heavily protected targets and security forces head on, Baidhani told Reuters. “This strategy depends basically on shock. They are not looking for success as much as looking for attention.”
Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is battling to retain his job, opposed by the Sunni-backed, secular Iraqiya alliance of ex-premier Iyad Allawi and some erstwhile Shi’ite allies.
If Iraqiya ends up being sidelined, the Sunnis who voted for it in March may react in outrage and return to supporting the Sunni Islamist insurgency, security officials say.
In the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Bush administration accused Saddam Hussein’s regime of having links to al Qaeda as part of its campaign to bolster support for war.
No ties were ever proven but al Qaeda was quick to take advantage of the post-invasion chaos to establish a presence in Iraq.
And Obama has told them how long he is willing to keep US troops there, that means they know how long they have to continue fighting before they are facing only the Iraqi’s.
Its telling that many of these cowards spent time in US prisons.
Did everyone catch that?
US PRISONS! Not those in Iraq or France, though I’m sure there are plenty of those too.
Muslims are converting thousands of criminals in US prisons and elsewhere world-wide. Its as if the leaders of Islam are recruiting convicts to jihad, isn’t it?
Well its true.
For every Muslim who pleads guilty of terrorist activities, there are plenty of non-Muslim convicts who are just itching to use any ideology to “get back” at the system that brought them to prison in the first place. Thousands of them are released every year, bearing a new “religion”, Islam, that encourages sedition, plunder and murder in its name.
So when are we going to segregate all Muslims from the regular prison populations?
And when are we really going to fight back against Islam and its followers?
The Moslems recruit in and from the prisons because that is the place where it is easiest to find people who are willing to turn against their country, they are very successful among the Blacks because the left has for decades taught them the nation owes them a debt for something that happened over 150 years ago. The will continue to do this until we find some legal way to stop them.