The State of the Insurgency

As I pointed out in Analyzing Zarqawi Statement, I believe that the insurgency is now having a rough time recruiting replacements for all of the lives they wasted in suicide VBIEDs in the last 45 days.

Pretty difficult organizing and planning attacks when all the little indians are dead and the the big chiefs are sitting around scratching their asses. Worse yet, it's very difficult to convince people to come join your cause when the romance of fighting the "big Satan" turns into "how many innocent bystanders [read "Muslims"] can you take out with a car and a trunk load of explosives." I think the worst PR they could have gotten was the failed frontal attacks on Abu Graihb and Qaim along with a few other hotspots. The US military learned their lesson a long time ago in Beirut about how to properly barricade a base and what to do if crazy people in cars/trucks start driving towards you at high rates of speed and even Sgrena the Italian learned that they do mean to pull the trigger if you even wink suspiciously.

In my previous post, I commented that there was a story in the Arab News about two would be jihadists having their illusions of the grand mujihadeen efforts smashed when they got to Iraq and found out all they wanted was volunteers to drive booby trapped cars and kill themselves. I found the link via Arab World Analysis:

The sources added: 'At that point the leader of the group suddenly showed them the truth regarding which the young men felt the strongest bitterness. So then he said: We have a group of automobiles ready to perform suicide operations. The young men almost lost consciousness from the terror of the shock. And they said to him: how our coming to Iraq has come to this end in a suicide operation with such ease! He answered them indifferently: this is what we have now, and if you want you may look elsewhere! At that moment they decided to return to their country, and completely changed their minds about participating in what they thought was resistance in Iraq.'

Add in a few "religious rulings" by the Saudi Mufti and Islamic Scholars:

Now, Saudi religious scholars have come to a consensus that going to Iraq with the goal of killing in the current circumstances is not legal. Likewise the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia in an open meeting refuted the claims that what is happening now in Iraq is really jihad. He has said: 'Indeed, jihad in the cause of God is a great thing, no one doubts in its bounty or in its greatness, but the situation in Iraq differs. For our brothers in Iraq know the condition of their country and its circumstances and overall environment, and they work with their reality as they see fit.

I imagine some complaints regarding religioius sermons have been lodged, not only by "outside forces", but by some unsuspecting parents who find out their boys aren't in Damascus going to university, but have their names posted on a jihad website as "martyrs". Not all Saudi parents are happy to have their kids' brains splattered on the pavement. Since the Saudi government controls the mosques and universities, it is obvious they are putting pressure on folks to stop convincing their 20 something young men to sneak across the border and cause the house of Saud a royal pain in the public relations.

Continuing analyzing the insurgency, toss in things like using cows and dogs to carry explosives; some Iraqis meeting out immediate justice; operation clean sweep; operation Matador on the Iraq-Syrian border; recent news that the US and other countries have recently tied up another loop hole in transfering money to potential terrorists or their organizations through hawala by cracking down on unlicensed and unregulated organizations and, last but not least, rumors or fact of zarqawi being injured coupled with some internet confusion about who is in charge, pretty much point to a period of time when the "insurgency" is all screwed up.

One thing is sure, whether he's wounded, dead or just doing a "strategic retreat" after pissing off so many people, replacing Zarqawi as the leader, isn't all that easy.

Recall that these groups are small, insular cells. Working relations are built on absolute trust and not easily won. As much as some might believe otherwise, money is not handed over like candy at a barmitvah. Particularly, in today's atmosphere of slowly closing financial resources and other issues making it difficult just to "send money, will write". Requests are made and approved through regular, nearly beaurocratic processes and approved further up the food chain (see AQ manifest and other stories regarding operations, including September 11).

Whether Zarqawi died, is wounded or just took the low road out of Dodge to save his ass, operations will be extremely slowed down for a bit. Certainly nothing like we've seen the last two months. What we will continue to see is the occasional car bomb and some drive by shootings probably committed by sectarian partisans, not necessarily Zarqawi/AQ terrorists.

This will be further disrupted as continued sweeps and cordons of Baghdad net a few more low, medium and high value targets. With confusion in the ranks, leadership is reorganized and once long established trusting relationship between couriers and different cell leaders have to get re-established under the new guy, it is likely that some of these targets will yield up some decent intel to save their own asses.

I expect any attacks (as seen today) to be less well coordinated and performed by amateurs who will try to get their names put forward with the new guy.

I am not predicting them down and out for the count, but I would say, "seriously wounded".