|
|
#1
03-25-2005, 06:33 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7b2a3b4e-9d...00e2511c8.html
Perhaps not with the crazy religious insurgents but it seems the secular insurgents (Ba'athists) are looking to negoiate. The massive purple finger election seems to have dealt them a massive blow to their morale... 
|
|
#2
03-25-2005, 07:57 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
Looks like that's a possibility. I don't have the link but an article from Debka weekly:
From Debka Weekly: Al Zarqawi Is Losing Ground First Iraqi Army Victories, Syrian Officers Taken Prisoner The new Iraqi army scored two important victories this week – one near Baqouba in Diala Province and the second in the northern city of Mosul. For the first time, Iraqi troops carried out successful proactive operations targeting insurgent and terrorist strongholds without US military support. The 3rd Iraqi Brigade under the command of Brig. Gen. Khaidar Ibrahim successfully stormed the Diyala provincial command center shared by Iraqi guerilla units, and operational cells of Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda wing and its affiliate Ansar al Islam. After securing their target, they handed 50 prisoners belonging to all three groups to US intelligence for interrogation. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources who disclosed this episode name the most important captive as Hamim Azawi, leader of a large guerrilla band about a hundred strong which terrorized the main northbound Baqouba-Kirkuk highway and its environs. Under their cover, guerrillas were able to slip through to the Kurdish enclave and blow up Kirkuk’s oil installations. Among them were the men who for months on end organized the assassinations of many Iraqi provincial government officials and wholesale massacres of Iraqi soldiers and police. In Mosul, commandos of the Iraqi army’s “Wolves Brigade,” led by Brig. Gen. Abu Walid, caught the enemy by surprise. It is made up of largely Shiite fighters including exiles returned home and the first combatants trained in Hungary as part of a NATO project. They battled their way through for three days - from Monday, March 21 to Wednesday, March 23 – and finally recaptured the Sunni southwestern part of Iraq’s third largest city of the north, home to 2 million, more than half of whom are Sunni Muslims. The northern districts of this ethnically mixed city are Kurdish, but the Sunni section had been occupied for months by the same coalition of Iraqi insurgents, al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam terrorists, as were found in Diyala. Here too many prisoners were taken. Mosul powder keg defused Iraqi forces chalked up a second first: Never before in the Iraq war had they taken a whole section of a major city without American military aid. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, they rounded up as many as 300 terrorists, among them Saudis, Algerians and Yemenis. But their most important catch was 11 Syrian intelligence officers ranging from captain to colonel. All were on active service with Syrian intelligence services and led operations against the Iraqi government and American forces. While the Syrian officers were transferred to Baghdad for questioning, the men serving under their command signed confessions and provided detailed descriptions of the camps and training facilities in Syria where they were prepared for combat in Iraq. Another terrorist group linked to Zarqawi, Ansar al Sunna, this week released a new videotape called “Healing for the Heart”, a sort of morale-booster effort documenting successful raids in different parts of Iraq. The tape was badly, even amateurishly, produced – unlike previous tapes. Close examination indicated that most of the footage was pieced together from recycled images of events filmed in late 2003 or early 2004. This attempt to cheer the ranks in fact betrayed the sorry state of al Qaeda’s Iraq infrastructure and its head, Zarqawi. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report that in the last 24 hours, panic-stricken exchanges are building up on Iraqi Islamist Websites and communications channels, mostly questions about the fate of comrades. Syria itself provided the most damaging evidence of its complicity in the anti-American Iraqi insurgency. This week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and counter-terror sources reveal that American investigators wound up their questioning of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti. Six of diamonds and No. 36 on the US pack of 55 cards, Sabawi was head of Iraqi intelligence in the 1991 Gulf War, then director of Iraq’s notorious security services until 1996 when he was appointed senior presidential aide to Saddam. On the night of February 14, the Syrians picked him up just hours after the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut. They found him at the base given him in the northeastern Syrian town of Hasakah for directing and financing the Iraqi Baath guerrilla revolt against US forces. Accused of involvement in the Hariri assassination and the Tel Aviv nightclub bombing, Damascus was under such extreme pressure that it made the mistake of handing Sabawi over.
|
|
#3
03-25-2005, 10:48 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
thanks for the articles guys, this is indeed good news. Hopefully Europe takes notice of the Syrian Intelligence officers in Iraq and starts to see what really is going on.
|
|
#5
03-25-2005, 11:18 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
[ QUOTE ]
Ya, like the Europeans dont know that Syria is evil as all hell... [/ QUOTE ]I have my doubts.
|
|
#6
03-26-2005, 12:17 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
I think a more important ? is how do the Europeans perceive themselves...
who are their friends... who are their enemies... what future alliances will develop... Im one who believe the rift between the US and much of Western Europe is much more than a temporary hiccup. I may or may not be correct....but there are certainly very deep issues at play.
|
|
#7
03-26-2005, 01:47 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
"Hopefully Europe takes notice of the Syrian Intelligence officers in Iraq and starts to see what really is going on."
****************************************** I have to disagree here. It matters very little whether 'Europe' takes notice or not. The USA needs to keep with the plan whether Europe agrees or not......
|
|
#8
03-26-2005, 05:47 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Is the Iraq Insurgency Beginning to Crack?
[ QUOTE ]
"Hopefully Europe takes notice of the Syrian Intelligence officers in Iraq and starts to see what really is going on." ****************************************** I have to disagree here. It matters very little whether 'Europe' takes notice or not. The USA needs to keep with the plan whether Europe agrees or not...... [/ QUOTE ] I agree, the U.S. should continue on anyways, but it would be nice if Europe stoped being a douche about the whole thing.
|
|
#9
03-27-2005, 04:34 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
And how about those North Korean spies in Mosul?
[ QUOTE ]
Hopefully Europe takes notice of the Syrian Intelligence officers in Iraq and starts to see what really is going on. [/ QUOTE ] You guys believe that Syrian intelligence is behind the Iraqi insurgency? That they are any kind of serious factor in Iraq?? Whoa. You guys are still out to lunch. If the American military planners have the same crazy ideas about the situation on the ground, we are going to see a lot more idiocy down the road. Let's hope they haven't.
|
|
#10
03-27-2005, 04:41 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: And how about those North Korean spies in Mosul?
You guys believe that Syrian intelligence is behind the Iraqi insurgency? That they are any kind of serious factor in Iraq?? Whoa.
NO, and yes.
|
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
