Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Chopping Block

http://billroggio.com/archives/2005/09/the_chopping_bl_1.php
September 27, 2005
The Chopping Block
By Bill Roggio
The past month has been exceptionally hard on the upper management of al 
Qaeda in Iraq. The death of al Qaeda’s number two in command, Abdullah 
Abu Azzam, highlights this fact. Security Watchtower documents the heavy 
losses. In the Anbar and Diwana provinces, sixteen leaders, including 
six “emirs”, five senior facilitators and 5 brigade or cell leaders have 
been killed or captured. This list excludes the Coaliton’s success in 
dismantling the al-Ahwal brigade in the city of Hit. The Lincoln Tribune 
provides the details, summarized below. Note the cascading effect of 
capturing a senior leader of the al-Ahwal brigade. Within two weeks the 
leadership is rounded up.
• On Aug. 13, Multinational forces raided a suspected terrorist location 
in Baghdad and captured Abu Ahmah, the second in command of the 
terrorist Al-Ahwal Brigade in Hit.
• On Aug. 24 Coalition forces raided a suspected terrorist location in 
the vicinity of Hit and captured Abu Yamana, a homemade- and car-bomb 
cell leader.
• On Aug. 25, multinational forces raided a suspected terrorist location 
near Hit and captured Abu Husayn, who led a media cell that filmed and 
photographed attacks, created fliers, posters and other extremist 
propaganda and distributed them to local citizens in Hit and other 
cities in the region.
• On Aug. 26 Multinational forces raided a suspected terrorist location 
in Baghdad and captured Abu Jafar or Abu Zaynab, the leader and primary 
financier of the Al-Ahwal Brigade.
• Also on Aug. 26 Mahmud Saynt, Jafar's military commander and closest 
friend and adviser, was killed when coalition forces attempted to 
capture him.
• On Aug. 27, forces raided a suspected terrorist location in Hit and 
captured Aby Sayf, who had been Mahmud Saynt's deputy and had just 
succeeded the slain Al-Ahwal Brigade military commander.
Yet another al Qaeda leader has been detained by the Coalition. Abdul 
Rahman Hasan Shahin, “one of the most wanted figures in Mosul” 
surrendered to local police. This is not the action of a jihadi leader 
with high morale. And his cowardice will filter down the ranks. But 
based on the Coalition’s pounding of al Qaeda in northern Iraq, Shahin’s 
surrender is understandable.
Wretchard drives home the impact of decapitating al Qaeda's middle and 
upper management, a point made here often.
     But the worst of it is the wastage to cadres. Those who write that 
body counts are a meaningless metric to apply against the insurgency 
ignore the fact that formations which sustain heavy casualties lose 
their organizational memory while those who suffer lightly retain them. 
Lt. Col. Joseph L'Etoile is on his third and half of his men are on 
their second tours of Iraq . For Abu Nasir and many of his foreign 
fighters, the memory of what to avoid next time has been lost on this, 
their last tour of Iraq.
Image of al-Ahwal Brigade courtesy of CENTCOM.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:o7h_e.24173
$Jr.3...@twister2.libero.it...
http://billroggio.com/archives/2005/09/the_chopping_bl_1.php
"September 27, 2005
The Chopping Block
By Bill Roggio"
E tre. Ma chi cazzo è "Bill Roggio"? Il n. 3 di al-Zarqawi?
Namib :)