Some news about Iraq

Kenneth R Timmerman writes in Front Page Magazine:

A sea change is beginning to occur in Iraq: for the first time since the insurgency took off, the terrorists are starting to run.

This is occurring not because the United States has successfully promoted political dialogue among Iraq’s torn communities, although a successful dialogue is certainly to be desired.

It is occurring not because the United States has given in to the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission and others, who have suggested a policy of unilateral capitulation to the terror-masters pulling the strings of the insurgency in Damascus and Tehran.

Nor is it occurring because we have suddenly become better at winning “hearts and minds” in Iraq, although such an effort, as described by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, would appear to be sound counter-insurgent policy.

The terrorists are on the run for one reason only: they fear the United States.

“In Tehran, they are now referring to the United States as mar-rouye domesh vastadeh – the Cobra standing on his tail,” says Shahriar Ahy, an Iranian-born political analyst who helped build the post-war broadcasting network in Iraq.

The sea-change began on January 10, when President George W. Bush announced that the United States would no longer tolerate Iranian and Syrian intelligence officers using Iraq as a playground for their murderous games.

When he announced the troop surge in Iraq, Bush also put Iran and Syria on notice. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops,” he said. “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Those weren’t idle words. That very night, U.S. forces raided an Iranian intelligence headquarters in the Kurdish town of Irbil, capturing six Iranians. The Iranian government screamed that they were diplomats, but apparently only one had any sort of diplomatic credentials. My sources tell me this was Hassan Abbassi, a well-known strategist who is close to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The other five turned out to be Revolutionary Guards officers. My sources identified three of them by name, and told me they were providing a treasure trove of intelligence to their U.S. interrogators (who appear to be receiving help from an intelligence expert from the opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq).

“They are key people in the Sepah Quds,” the overseas terrorist arm of the Revolutionary Guards, a former Iranian intelligence officer told me.

Iranian exiles and Kurdish sources identified another captive as Brig. Gen. Mohammad Djafari Sahraroudi, a Kurdish affairs expert who is wanted by Interpol for his involvement in the 1989 murder in Vienna of Iranian Kurdish dissident Abdulrahman Qassemlou.

Also among those detained was Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National Security advisor Ali Larijani, the sources said.

The raid in Irbil was in fact the second U.S. backed raid that captured senior Iranian revolutionary guards officials recently. Shortly before Christmas, coalition forces raided the headquarters of Shiite political leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, just three weeks after he was in the Oval Office meeting with President Bush.

During that raid, they captured documents which American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen called “a wiring diagram” of Iran’s terror networks in Iraq.

This is all good news. I have long said that history teaches that if Islam is met with steel it will retreat. Add all of the above to this from the Front Page Magazine's War Blog:

While the Associated Press leads with relentlessly defeatist stories emphasizing the deaths of US soldiers, Rusty notes that Al Qaeda in Iraq is Crumbling.

Coalition forces in Iraq have delivered a series of stunning blows to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last 48 hours.

A key aide to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the man who replaced Abu Musab al Zarqawi as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, has been captured south of Baghdad. As A.J. Strata notes, the trail to the al Qaeda leader is fresh: the captured aide admitted to meeting with al Masri yesterday.

Since Taji is north of Baghdad, these two al Qaeda IED cell leaders captured by the U.S. in West Taji are not the same as those above. That’s four al Qaeda leaders captured.

But four is such a lonely number. A facilitator of foreign fighters was captured by the Iarqi Army on the Syrian border. And foreign fighters tend to mean al
Qaeda.

Not to be outdone by the IA, the U.S. struck two houses where foreign fighters had gathered—-13 jihadis dead. An “individual” associated with foreign fighter facilitation was in the targeted area.

But wait, that’s not all. Coalition Forces conducted an air strike Wednesday targeting an al-Qaida in Iraq-related vehicle-borne improvised explosives devices network near Arab Jabour. Intelligence reports indicated that this network is responsible for a large and devastating number of VBIED attacks in the Baghdad area. They are also responsible for IED and sniper attacks conducted against the Iraqi people and Iraqi and Coalition Forces. Building destroyed, everyone inside presumably dead.

And another terrorist was captured in Taji. In addition to leading a bombing cell, he is also believed to be involved in taking Iraqis hostage and murdering them. Which would mean that he is either al Qaeda or one of the related organizations under the umbrella of the “Islamic State of Iraq”.

So, we have 6 al Qaeda leaders captured, and possibly dozens more killed. All in the last 48 hours. Thursday, February 8, 2007

The mainstream media will try to conceal the fact that things are going well for as long as they can so don't expect to see any of this on the nightly news, but it is happening.

Would it not be grand if victory in Iraq becomes impossible to hide by next fall when the presidential race is heating up? To have Hillary, who is busy establishing her anti-war credentials, have to explain how she was really for the war all along will be priceless.