Al Qaida Defeated In Iraq

Those are the words of one of the most influential tribal leaders in Iraq as Mike Yon reports in his latest dispatch. Mike also called into Hugh Hewitt's radio show today and spoke of the incredible progress and bored Marines in Anbar wanting to go where the fight is in Afganistan. Mike was embedded during the early fights for Fallujah and Mosul and I believe he is the most trusted voice from Iraq.

“Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated,” according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been “defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically,” referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group’s tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad. They are being hunted down and killed. Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.

Related:
Jeff Emanuel relates a tragic and heroic firefight in the early days of the "surge"
in Samara.
Mike Totten has a couple new articles in Commentary and a review of SSgt David Bellavia's book on the clearing of Fallujah.