US ambassador: al-Qaida close to defeat in Iraq

Source: yn

BAGHDAD - The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Saturday that al-Qaida's network in the country has never been closer to defeat, and he praised Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his moves to rein in Shiite and Sunni militant groups.
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Ryan Crocker's comments came as Iraqi forces have been conducting crackdowns on al-Qaida militants in the northern city of Mosul and on Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra. Thousands of Iraqi forces also moved into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad last week imposing control for the first time in years.

But truces with the powerful Mahdi Army militia that have calmed violence in Basra and paved the way for the Sadr City deployment have been strained in the past two days.

Supporters of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads the Mahdi Army, accused al-Maliki on Saturday of seeking to eliminate their movement and warned that "dark clouds" hang over the truce.

Al-Qaida fighters or other Sunni insurgents struck back in Mosul on Saturday. A roadside bomb in the city's Sumer neighborhood hit an Iraqi army patrol, destroying a vehicle and killing four soldiers, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Near Baqouba — where a U.S. offensive last year targeted al-Qaida in Iraq — gunmen assassinated a member of the local Awakening Council, a U.S.-backed group of Sunni tribesmen who are fighting al-Qaida. The attack occurred in the village of Had, north of Baghdad, police said.

U.S Ambassador Crocker spoke as he visited reconstruction projects in the southern city of Najaf.

"There is important progress for the Iraqi forces in confronting the Sunni and Shiite militias," he said, speaking Arabic to reporters. "The government, the prime minister are showing a clear determination to take on extremist armed elements that challenge the government's authority ... no matter who these elements are."

"You are not going to hear me say that al-Qaida is defeated, but they've never been closer to defeat than they are now," Crocker said.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080525/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AvVbeZqLG58GJoV9PQKLdWBvaA8F

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Okay, then, time to go home?

he just goes on to the next country in the area.

Al-Qaeda chief dies in missile air strike

The death of a senior militant in a controversial hit has led to claims of the terror group's defeat

An al-Qaeda trainer and explosives specialist involved in a range of European terrorist networks has been killed in Pakistan, the latest senior militant to die in a spate of controversial American missile strikes.

The death two weeks ago of Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi, a highly experienced Algerian militant, has been confirmed only in the last few days, intelligence sources in Pakistan and Western Europe told The Observer. Al-Jazairi, thought to have been 45, died along with at least 15 others when the house in which he was staying in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district was hit by a missile fired from a Predator, an American pilotless drone.

Details are only now emerging about the strike on Damadola, a village near the Afghan-Pakistan border hit twice in the past

snip

...'Al-Qaeda may not have had a successful attack in three years but it is too early to declare victory.'

Hoffman said that the danger this year was in fact high. 'People do not join a terrorist group to sit on their hands and if are going to retain their relevance it is now or never.'

Yet senior figures within American intelligence have also been struck by the failure of al-Qaeda to mobilise broad support in the Islamic world, and have begun to think more optimistically about the future. Security services have closely followed disputes and defections in recent months. Vicious feuding has led some analysts to conclude that the Islamic militant movement is turning in on itself with al-Qaeda leaders Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri increasingly isolated. Postings by al-Zawahiri in a question and answer session on the internet a month ago had a defensive tone, seeking to justify civilian casualties in militant attacks. The strategy is seen as a failure by many militants outside al-Qaeda and by some within the group.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/01/alqaida.pakistan?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Feeling isolated ?
Supposedly living in a cave will do that to you. Some just live detached from their power base to achieve isolation;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3252033&mesg_id=3258033

CIA chief lashed for upbeat Qaeda report
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=58292§ionid=3510203

Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller, slams the CIA chief Michael Hayden for his optimistic comments on al-Qaeda.

Hayden has recently claimed that al-Qaeda is defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and that the insurgent group is on the defensive elsewhere around the world.

Rockefeller said Hayden's upbeat appraisal contradicts the intelligence reports provided to his committee over the past year.

“In fact, I have seen nothing, including classified intelligence reporting, that would lead me to this conclusion,” Rockefeller said Saturday in a scathing letter to the CIA director, AFP reported.

Hayden's comments came almost one year after a US intelligence report that al-Qaeda was regenerating in Pakistan preparing to launch attacks on the West.

Based on the US intelligence estimate in July 2007, while al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri remain at large, the terrorist group had regenerated a new cadre of leadership in Pakistan.

A politician that makes comments based on poll #'s ?




http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSL01687040






http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

I say give it until July 4th before jumping to any further conclusions but things are not taking a turn for the worse.

Mission #2 Accomplished?

:patriot:

:sarcasm: