Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi has sent another audiotape, this one blasting Sunni clerics for not standing up for the terrorists:
“You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy… You have quit supporting the mujahedeen,” al-Zarqawi purportedly said on the tape. “Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence.”
What we’re seeing is the fragmentation of the “insurgency” in Iraq. They’ve lost their central base of operations in Fallujah. They’re scattered and on the run. They’ve long ago given up on trying to turn the Iraqi people against the coalition and the Iraqi government — killing innocent Iraqis by the score will never achieve that end. What they’re out to do now is try to disrupt and destroy the chances of Iraq having free elections.
They will fail.
Belmont Club reports further on how the actions in Fallujah have hurt the insurgency. The terrorists cannot maintain the kind of operational tempo that we can. In the last few weeks have killed between 1,500-2,000 insurgents – well more than decimating their numbers. The cost in American lives has been just over 100 this month – a figure that is high, but will reduce the number of future casualties. For much of this year American soldiers have been hit with sneak attacks with IEDs and car bombs – almost all of which were manufactured in Fallujah. Without that resource, the terrorists can’t keep up those kinds of attacks at this level.
Furthermore, we’re not letting up. Just today we’ve launched another assault against the terrorists, this time concentrating in the area south of Baghdad were many of the terrorists had escaped to from Fallujah.
We should have done this some time ago, but it is better late than never. As we continue to neutralize the ability for the terrorists to plan and launch attacks, the death toll will go down. The Iraqi Army, while still nowhere near the caliber they need to be, is steadily getting better and participating in an increasingly active fashion.
But the biggest aspect of this strategy is psychological. The terrorists operating in Iraq have always had safe haven in Fallujah. Now they’re being hunted down. They’ve undoubtedly seen the massive firepower that the US can bring to bear on them, and they know that it’s only a matter of time now. Their leader is decrying the fact that the local clerics and the Iraqi people do not support them, and wherever they go they cannot have any guarantee of safety anymore.
The terrorist “insurgency” is under seige, their home base destroyed, their forces scattered, their lines of communication and supply severed, and they find themselves constantly on the run and awating the next attack knowing that it could be their last.
Which is exactly the position they should be in.
And when zarqawi has to flee Iraq for the sake of his own personal safety, the oldstream media here in America will portray that as “wily terrorist gets away to fight another day,” whereas, in the arab culture, he will be seen as a whipped puppy yelping off with his tail between his legs.