Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Islamic state in Iraq!

Al-Qaeda's declaration of an "Islamic State" in Iraq came and went unnoticed by most of Iraqis. One of my friends said when I told him about it "what difference would it make? They've been killing people on daily basis so what makes you think they will stop and start taking care of them and act like a responsible government like they claim to be?"
As an Iraqi I know they can't control this "'State" but they chose an area of influence where they can use their "hit and run" tactics to declare a "State" in, moreover, the declaration sounded more like a challenge to the Iraqi Government and the Coalition forces than a real declaration of a state.
I guess my friend was right, there will be no change in their actions towards people but still I have a few points I would like to mention about this new "State" and its surroundings:

It seems that al Qaeda quitted the idea of "liberating" the entire country. I guess that from now on they will be busy "defending" the newborn "State".

The declaration came when their lighting began to fade so to speak, so they came up with a move to attract some of the lost attention back; they need to once again to be in the spotlight to insure the flow of recruits and funds.

They have chosen four provinces of Sunni majority where they have few supporters adding to them Baghdad and Kirkuk where they have fewer supporters. Baghdad and Kirkuk (which has a sizable presence of Shia militias that rarely gets involved in action) will witness a fierce war between al Qaeda and the Shia militia because the militia will try their best to show that the two cities do not belong to al Qaeda.

The Iraqi Government and the Coalition forces have their own war against al Qaeda and the militia, so what we will have is like a compound war where each one of them will have to fight at two fronts simultaneously.

I think their strategy will retain the same methods of killing more Shia civilians in the hope to provoke an all-out civil war.
Killing Shia civilians will lead to retaliation acts form the militia against Sunni civilians living in Shia neighborhoods, so more forced displacement will take place in the coming few weeks. Neither the Government nor the Coalition forces can do much about the sectarian killings and forced displacement because they usually occur through assassinations and intimidations that are difficult to notice and trace by the security forces.
I don’t think deploying more forces would solve the problem but "smart" forces may have a better chance.

The al-Qaeda should not be given any chance to choose the time and the place of the battle. The moving patrols of the Iraqi and Coalition forces are very simple targets and most of the casualties happen among them. The best way to deal with both al- Qaeda and the militia is to keep "hunting" them in "sudden strikes". They should live in fear all the time not knowing when it will happen.
The Israeli techniques in hunting down their opponents would go perfect for the coming stage. Eliminating their threat is more cost-effective and prevents unnecessary casualties that might result when trying to capture them.

10 Comments:

At 12:14 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As an American, I am confident that there are undercover SEALS, Rangers, and other covert forces going after these guys. You won't hear about the hits they make, but rest assured they are being made. You can also be assured that they are shaking in their robes! Those guys are GOOD!

 
At 12:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It may take a while to get those "smart forces" in place. Today's Wall Street Journal says the first cut at their training was not very good.

http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB116113605252296021.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj

And so, the Army has received some scathing commentary from its own people.

And, it will act on those comments, so that the effort gets better. This article is not good news, but the fact that it could be written, that the Army encourages honest assessments from its people, and that the Army is committed to acting on the criticism it receives -- all those things bode well for the future. All I can say about that is, "Faster, please. These people have put up with enough."

Valerie

 
At 5:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The best way to deal with al-Qaeda and the militia is to keep hunting them in sudden strikes. They should live in fear all the time not knowing when it will happen" Funny how their stratagy has turned on them.

 
At 11:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh
Amercans still dreaming about al-Qaeda, they are spread all over the world and God will do his promise when Islam will spread and go over all.
failing and falling amercans is a matter of time, that time amercans will wake up.

 
At 8:18 AM, Blogger RightWingRocker said...

Anonynous -

Get over yourself.

RWR
www.rightwingrocker.com

 
At 11:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

gee it sure would be nice if the US and UK and all European troops would get the **** out of Iraq in considerably less than 12 months.

Shia or Sunni -- we had no business trying to use our superpower military violence to impose an entirely foreign poliical system on an Iraq whose social and religious systems we understand about as well as we understand the civilizations of other planets.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study sent teams of Iraqi doctors all over the country to conduct interviews, and concluded that since the Coalition war began, more than 600,000 civilians have been killed from violence.

Your suggestions on strategies for lessening the violence or stabilizing Iraq must be based on far better familiarity with Iraq than I have, but I don't think your ideas have the slightest chance of succeeding.

The Coalition invasion/occupation just unleashed far too many murderous sectarian and ethnic forces -- like the Balkans after Tito died -- and no clever mini-strategies are going to prevent the hurricane that's just over the horizon.

Bremer disbanded the Iraq Army, Iraqis who had discipline, a working command structure and training to take orders and accomplish military missions. Now in its place are 100,000 unemployed men with smallarms weapons and military training. They now obey the commands of their ethnic and religious geurrilla communities.

Well, we had a good time with our new Christian-vs-Muslim Crusade. Like the previous Crusades, it was based on ignorance, religious hatred, and abysmal military intelligence, so it failed. Now we need to get out and let the people of this region find or fight a way to their next regional stability. The objective, for Iraqis and for Europe and the USA, is not Shia or Sunni nationalism. It is the cessation of the mass killings of civilians. Europe and the USA have caused these deaths and can do nothing to stop them -- except leave Iraq quickly.

 
At 11:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well JamesKPolka aren't you well versed in talking points, the sad thing is you missed the key little fact of that great study you are touting, whay prey tell is that? Well it's called a margin of error, which in the case of this "study" exceeded the total numbers of the study ranging from 30,000 to over 1.2 million if I recall correctly. That means that the study is statistically invalid and thus not worth the paper it was written on, but thanks for playing.

"Bremer disbanded the Iraq Army, Iraqis who had discipline, a working command structure and training to take orders and accomplish military missions."

This is what we call water under the bridge, and believe it or not this Army was not loyal to the US and thus needed to be disbanded. The job market has since recovered somewhat and the unemployment is about 20% or roughly the same as the EU. So hey it's all good.

"Your suggestions on strategies for lessening the violence or stabilizing Iraq must be based on far better familiarity with Iraq than I have, but I don't think your ideas have the slightest chance of succeeding."

Actually I am sure since Sooni is sitting in the middle of the fighting he's probably got a rather good idea of what's going on and more than his fair share of ideas to solve his problems. Unlike you, have you even seen Iraq on a map? Personally I loved the Balad area when I was there it was quite a refreshing change of pace.

 
At 7:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hypothesis that can never be tested are meaningless ...
Hence the hypothesis that
if only Bremmer kept the Iraqi
army in place everything would be fine is MEANINGLESS ...

bremmer disbanded the Iraqi army
in order for the new army and the old army to be formed under a new leadership which included
the er well UGH
HUGE Shia MAJORITY .....

All old Iraqi army personnel were
invited to join the new army
by Bremmer AND Allawi ....

so shut up about this already ....

Iraqi Healh ministry reported
65000 Iraqi deaths so far ...
Considering nearly all the violence occurs qithin 30 square
miles of Baghdad that leaves

600,000 Bodies unseen most
within a densely populated area
under constant patrol ....

The 650,000 figure is certainly questionable

Iraq has an Elected Parliament ...
A Shiite head of Oil Ministry ...
A Sunni head of Defense ministry
and other positions are held in
a representative fashion ...

I mean none of these people have called for immediate withdrawal
of US forces ... in fact I hope they do !!! ....

To claim that you know better then they do shows that indeed
you are a fool

 
At 7:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If the suni armed forces are so worthless why is it now impossivle for a militant victory for the US?
I guess in the near future there might be two Iraqs. suni and shia. This is if suni forces didnt take over.

 
At 10:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Has any one told you that suni or Shia, you guys are still Muslims and Iraqis’. Don't you all believers of Profit Mohamad? I'm not even an Iraqi and it saddens me to see this type of division amongst you "Iraqis". Don't you guys see what’s being done to you guys by your radical leaders? When will you guys wake up? Why can't you keep your faith at heart and live your lives as an honorable Iraqis? See folks, I am supposedly a Muslim and supposedly a Shia and I am an Iranian-American. However, none of this means anything if I killed, under the name of God. It dose not mean anything if I tried to impose my believe upon everyone else. American and other ally’s forces eventually will leave your country. At the end it's you and your country. You can either fight or kill each other, or you can join hands in building your country and your democracy. Then as a suni, Shia, Christian, etc.. Go to your place of prayers and practice your respected religion. Some may say, wake up to reality. Well, why can't you make this your reality?
God bless all good, loving, peace loving people which I'm sure that most of you are.

 

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