Last Gasps from al Qaeda

Interesting:

The last days on Earth of Abu Osama al-Tunisi apparently were filled with anxiety: “We are desperate for your help,” he said in a letter to al Qaeda chieftains.
A copy of the letter was found by U.S. troops sifting through the rubble of the building in Musayb, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, where on Sept. 25 al-Tunisi had been meeting with two local al Qaeda operatives when an F-16 cut their discussion short.

Al-Tunisi was a key member of the rapidly dwindling inner circle of Abu Ayoub al Masri, the al Qaeda chieftain in Iraq. Another key member, Abou Yaakoub al Masri, an intimate of Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, was killed Aug. 31 near the northern Baghdad suburb of Tarmiyah.

Al-Tunisi was responsible for bringing foreign al Qaeda recruits into Iraq and placing them in operational cells, U.S. military spokesmen said. That effort suffered a major blow when “Muthanna,” the al Qaeda emir for the Iraq-Syrian border region, was killed in early September.

Al-Tunisi wasn’t alone in calling for help. “Al Qaeda has lost half its leadership over the summer, and American intelligence collectors have amassed a huge number of desperate messages from al Qaeda leaders and operatives,” said StrategyPage.

The collapse of al Qaeda’s networks in Iraq is the chief reason both U.S. casualties and Iraqi civilian deaths plunged in September, despite an increased operations tempo.

British Mideast expert Bartle Bull thinks it soon will be impossible to ignore the good news from Iraq. In an article this month in the British magazine Prospect titled “Mission accomplished,” Mr. Bull wrote: “With most Sunni factions now seeking a deal, the big questions in Iraq have been resolved positively. The country remains one, it has embraced democracy and avoided all-out civil war.”

The Sunnis, even the ex-Ba’athists, have turned on al Qaeda and are seeking a deal, and the predominantly Shia government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is willing to make one, Mr. Bull said. More than 14,000 Sunnis in Anbar Province, once al Qaeda’s stronghold, have joined the Iraqi army and police since the troop surge began.

“The Sunni insurgents have recognized that there is little point fighting a strong and increasingly skilled enemy ― the United States ― that is on the right side of Iraq’s historical destiny and has a political leadership that ... responds to setbacks by trying harder,” Mr. Bull said.