Al Qaeda flees Baghdad
New AQ is more Dangerous than Zarqawi, Military Intelligence Says.
By Richard Miniter
Al Qaeda terrorists are fleeing Baghdad in advance of President Bush's 21,500-man troop surge, a senior military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media today. Under orders from the al Qaeda commander in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, fighters are streaming toward the Diyala region of Iraq.
This confirms reports posted on Iraq the Model, which cited al-Sabah, an Iraqi government-owned newspaper.
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In speaking with Pajamas Media the military intelligence officer supplied several new details of the al Qaeda retreat.
The apparent evacuation of Baghdad by al Qaeda forces comes from direct orders issued by al-Masri, the former soldier who took control of the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda following the June 2006 bombing death of Zarqawi.
Initially, the intelligence officer informed Pajamas, the Baghdad-based AQ fighters did not want to leave. Al-Masri had to send unequivocal orders for their retreat, adding that one of the lessons from the Fallujah campaign was that Americans have learned how to prevail in house-to-house fighting. Masri said that remaining in Baghdad was a ‘no-win situation’ for the terrorists.
“In more than ten years of reading al Qaeda intercepts, I’ve never seen language like this,” the intelligence officer said. Usually, al Qaeda communications are full of bravado and false confidence, he added.
Al-Masri’s evacuation order - assuming that it is authentic - reveals that al Qaeda in Iraq leader has a good grasp of a tactical situation. “He is far more formidable than Zarqawi was,” the intelligence officer said, because of his training at Soviet special warfare schools.
Al-Masri has ordered al Qaeda forces to regroup in the Diyala province. This might be an attempt to lure American troops away from the Iraqi capital, forcing America to hunt al Qaeda in the province while the terrorists slowly slip behind them and return to Baghdad, he said.
Baqubah in the Diyala province was the city near which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was tracked down and killed last year.
This last situation is perhaps the reason behind several intense US/Iraqi combined military operations in Diyala over the past week. Reuters reported this morning that
Hundreds of people have been trying to flee the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala, close to the Iraqi-Iranian border, following a recent offensive by US and Iraqi troops in the area.
The operations combine ground forces and airstrikes.
U.S. commanders are well-aware that a trap may be set for them. Even with the raids in Diyala in progress, there are no plans to deploy large numbers of the “surge” forces outside Baghdad. Instead it will be the job of the Iraqi army to chase down militants, assisted by U.S. aerial reconnaissance and predator spy planes
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17 Comments
inkling:Any chance we can send some Ethiopian troops to Diyala for some mop-up work?
Jan 16, 2007 - 5:58 pm hamidreza:The reason al-Qaeda chose Diyala is that if it comes to a head, they can always flee to Iran. Iran Qods revolutionary guards maintain bases inside the Iranian border to house and nourish, arm and train the al-Qaeda and Salafi death squads.
It is time to bomb the palaces of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei inside Iran, and the refinaries and pipelines and oil wells of Iran, and teach them a costly lesson.
Jan 16, 2007 - 6:18 pm Brooks A. Mick:The following was written 5 days ago:
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, Counter-counterterrorism, Ad Infinitum
The past two years in Iraq have reminded me of the failed policies of General Westmoreland in Viet Nam, the “search and destroy” missions and the “strategic hamlets” planned to hamper the activities of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. It was later learned that the “strategic hamlet” plan was concocted by a double agent, one working for the North Vietnamese, and that it was designed to be not just ineffective, but counterproductive. The double agent proposed the plan to deliberately lose the hearts and minds of Montagnards and Vietnamese we were trying to protect. Some similar disinformation may have been planted in our military strategists’ minds at the start of the Iraq invasion.
The best way we could have won the Iraqis to our cause, engendered trust, and persuaded them to help us was to continue in the manner we went in at the beginning, strong and fast and with a mission, getting rid of Saddam. Then we turned too politically correct, refusing to shoot the bad guys when we could have, allowing them to grow stronger and gather more adherents, and creating the idea in the minds of the good and decent Iraqis that we were not capable of protecting them and driving out the terrorists. Nobody trusts a weakling.
Now, finally, it appears we are back on track. Rather than “search and destroy,” which abandons cleared territory and lets the enemy re-enter and retrench, we plan to drive them out, kill as many as possible, and secure the area permanently and make it safe for the Iraqi population. In addition, if the militias are part of the forces attacking us, we no longer must keep our hands off but can go after them too. We should have killed al Sadr in the beginning and disbanded his militia or killed them too. I hope al Sadr is quaking in his sandals. He should be. Lieutenant General Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq, wrote the book, literally, on counterinsurgency. If I know my terrorists, they are reading LTG Petraeus’s book right now and plotting counter-counterinsurgency.
One possible response of the terrorists is to simply decide to flee. The terrorists frequently adopt the far-eastern mentality regarding warfare, having learned much from the Chinese. If faced with an overwhelming force, they will often try to fade away to regroup and fight another day. If I were LTG Petraeus, I would be watching for fleeing terrorists and setting up intelligence networks in the rest of Iraq to identify suspicious newcomers from Baghdad. Realizing that the terrorists are busily reading my counterinsurgency handbook, I would be preparing a few surprises for them that aren’t in the book. If I were really sneaky, I would have written the book to mislead the terrorists. Perhaps some of the “obvious” counter-counter tactics the terrorists will develop from reading my book are really traps I have set up for them. I hope LTG Petraeus lives up to his reputation as a brilliant counter-insurgency leader.
If we don’t win this one, I am afraid that, years from now, some Iraqi immigrant to the USA will be saying sadly, as a Vietnamese friend of mine recently said, “The time of the Americans was the most peaceful and safe that we ever had in Viet Nam.” And one should remember that, after we abandoned Viet Nam, the genocide of Pol Pot in Cambodia and the imprisonment or killing of hundreds of thousands in Viet Nam ensued. Preventing such murder and mayhem is worth American lives and money, despite what the defeatists say.
Back to General Petraeus, I have no doubts he is already preparing to spot exfiltrating terrorists and annihilate them. I have no doubt he has plans for the counter-plans of the terrorists. I wish him luck. He may be the last general with a shot at saving western civilization.
–Dr. Brooks A. Mick
Jan 16, 2007 - 6:38 pm BHC:I this is true, HOW THE F–K CAN IT BE GOOD STRATEGY TO PUBLICIZE IT????
This is EXACTLY why they classify information!! This intercept should NEVER have made it into public media…
Jan 16, 2007 - 7:33 pm crosspatch:This is what I don’t understand. We should have known that they would head toward either Baquba or Iskandariyah. We should have been prepared for that and had these guys “evacuate” directly into the jaws of a trap.
I don’t get why we announce our intentions a month in advance and allow the enemy to adjust.
Jan 16, 2007 - 7:48 pm piscivorous:BHC said
I this is true, HOW THE F–K CAN IT BE GOOD STRATEGY TO PUBLICIZE IT????
This is EXACTLY why they classify information!! This intercept should NEVER have made it into public media…
It will give us a freer hand do dismantle the militias if their reason for existence is seen to be no longer valid.
Jan 16, 2007 - 8:35 pm ts:Ah, the story’s bullshit! How can be believe anything based on anonymous sources?
(Seriously though, Roger Simon is always carping on how the em ess em uses anonymice and you guys have the temerity to run this? And you think blogs are going to supplant the “old media”? First, you have to offer something different.)
Jan 17, 2007 - 7:34 am Roger Simon:ts has a point. I do frequently carp about anonymous sources and am certainly not comfortable with them for all the obvious reasons.
That said, we decided to run this because this is the only way to get information of this sort. It was also corroborated by the Iraqi media and by Iraq the Model (a named source) in Baghdad. Further, we have tried to specify the anonymous source as much as possible (in this case from military intelligence). We will continue to do that.
Finally, I would advise all to examine anonymous sources carefully, whether in the New York Times, the New Yorker or Pajamas Media.
Jan 17, 2007 - 9:59 am Shooter1001:al Qaeda has 2 major advantages. Sanctuary and supply in Iran and Syria. The second is that this ’surge’ is the US’s last effort in Iraq. If this upcoming offensive results in significant casualties over the next six months to a year without civil peace the US will retreat to safe enclaves or out of Iraq altogether. America will not take casualties for long.
Were I AQ’s General Giap, I’d pull out of Baghdad for now, since the US has telegraphed its intentions to attack. Let them pacify Baghdad and take the casualties. For now we can attack where the US is weak. Next year when the American public is tired of body bags we will be rested and supplied. Baghdad will be a plum. The US will not have the stomach for another year and will leave. One or two beheadings on al Jazeera and the US-trained Iraqi army and police will melt away.
Jan 17, 2007 - 1:15 pm DavidWaltrip:Typical MSM, you don’t like a comment, you do not print it! You and your ilk such as the NY Times are a disgrace.
Jan 17, 2007 - 1:42 pm gordo:I don’t buy it. Al Queda fighters and others of their ilk may be dispersing only to fight another day. They can infiltrate almost at will and create great damage through suicide bombers and IED’s. Their objective is not to stand up and fight but to turn America inside out by daily pictures of carnage.
Whatever they do, however, will not be determinative in the fight to come. The fight with the Mahdi army will determine the path forward for Iraq.
So it comes down to two questions. First, will the Maliki government support the Iraqi Army to help take down Al-Sadr and his militia or will it undermine that effort? Second, will the troops’ Rules of Engagement allow them to fight to win?
Stay tuned.
Jan 17, 2007 - 2:50 pm Natasha F.:Al Queda [sic]fighters and others of their ilk may be dispersing only to fight another day.
I think that’s precisely the point of the Miniter article. At least I thought so.
Jan 17, 2007 - 3:09 pm John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I suspect that publicizing the surge is not giving any news to Al Qaeda, et al. It’s hard to make major troop movements in enemy-infested territory without them figuring out what is happening.
More interesting is whether traps were set to anticipate this. Certainly forcing the enemy to move produces intelligence, which I suspect we were ready to capture by all means by the time this started.
Jan 17, 2007 - 4:04 pm Wellstone:Honestly, Miniter, do you not have even a twinge of self-consciousness writing “Pajamas heard yesterday..”??
LOL!
This story is obvious propaganda bull put out by CentCom: Transparent and odious, like the tools who post here.
Jan 18, 2007 - 11:02 am TS Alfabet:Actually, there are definite risks for the terrorists in abandoning Baghdad. 1) Baghdad is where all the western MSM live in hotels from which they claim to be ‘covering’ the war in Iraq, so what happens in Baghdad (or, more to the point, what DOESN’T happen) is very much portrayed as the war in general. If the terrorists leave Baghdad and the level of violence significantly decreases, even the doom-and-gloom media won’t be able to hide this as a big victory for the U.S. and Iraqi government (and correspondingly a big defeat for the terrorists); 2) “Fleeing” or abandoning or whatever face you put on it is already a defeat and a humiliation for the terrorists; No wonder there was so much resistance to Masri’s order to leave. In the Middle East, to be seen as retreating is weakness and could cost terrorists much support; 3) Perhaps the biggest gamble by the terrorists is that they will be able to return to Baghdad once they leave. If the U.S. plan works, each of the 7 city sectors will have a permanent security presence consisting of locals who can tip off the govt to returning terrorists long after U.S. troops leave. By retreating from Baghdad, the terrorists are giving the govt. the breathing space to set up security throughout the city and possibly foreclose the returen of terrorists at a later date, and; 4) The terrorists are fleeing to cities where they cannot possibly blend in as well as they could in a city the size of Baghdad. And U.S./I.A. actions to kill terrorists will be less impeded because it will be out of the spotlight that is Baghdad, unless the MSM decides to risk leaving their hotels and actually go out and do some real reporting, something they have shone no inclination toward so far.
All in all, it is tempting to say that we have already won our first victory in the Battle of Baghdad without firing a shot. If the terrorists want to give us Baghdad so easily, we will certainly take it and save our strength for getting Baghdad as secured as possible and take on the Shiite militias.
Jan 18, 2007 - 12:13 pm Free1967:We should have said we were “surging” in Dyala, then surrounded and killed them all in Bhagdad. I’m afraid this unbeleviably stupid BS of huge, slow, telegraphed moves is just a joke. We haven’t learned yet. What the hell is wrong with our generals??
Jan 18, 2007 - 9:51 pm mike:anonymous source, is no source and no credibility what so ever. undo or redo.
Apr 2, 2008 - 7:44 am