April 22,
2008: Between mid-March and mid-April, al Qaeda suffered major losses in Iraq.
American and Iraqi troops killed or captured 53 al Qaeda leaders. These include
men in charge of entire cities (or portions of large cities like Mosul or
Baghdad), as well as men in charge of various aspects of terror operations
(making bombs, placing them or minding the bombers). Most important, nine of
the ten most senior men involved, were captured, and interrogated. This led to
locating more al Qaeda staff, and assets. Hundreds of weapons and explosives
caches have been discovered this year, as a result of interrogating captured
terrorists. The result has been a sharp
fall in suicide bomber attacks, and the ones still carried out are against soft
targets (civilians), including the recent funeral of two men earlier killed by
terrorists. This was part of an al Qaeda campaign to force Sunni Arabs to
switch sides again and support terrorism. But these attacks have the opposite
effect, causing more hatred for al Qaeda.
All this
is good news, meaning it's not reported. Face, any media outlet that puts out
too much good news will go out of business. Bad news brings in the eyeballs and
advertising revenue. Stories of desertion and desperation in Basra grab the
headlines, while al Qaeda's travails are relegated to the back pages, if at
all.
