Changing Momentum

The Washington Times carries a report this morning about the momentum shift taking place in Iraq. Since the elections in Iraq, the number and lethality of attacks by "insurgents" has dropped off significantly. More importantly, it seems that more and more Iraqis are taking responsibility for their own security, as opposed to relying on US forces.

The favorable trends do not mean that insurgents cannot pull off spectacularly deadly attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

On Thursday, 11 Iraqi policemen were killed by a single suicide bomber, most likely a terrorist in the employ of Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi.

But Iraqis continue to sign up. After an even bloodier attack in January against Iraqis in line to apply for police jobs, a still-longer line formed the next day at the same spot, said a U.S. Army officer in Iraq.

And last week, merchants and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets joined the fight by using their own guns to kill three terrorists, who were firing on passers-by.

Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who commands the Army's 1st Cavalry Division and just returned from a year-plus tour overseeing Baghdad, is telling audiences that Osama bin Laden made a crucial mistake when he publicly encouraged Zarqawi.

It meant that the Saudi bin Laden was telling the Jordanian Zarqawi to slaughter Iraqis.

The insurgents also have seemed to change their tactics. In the past week, there were a couple of direct head-on confrontations with US and Iraqi forces. In each of these, the "insurgents" suffered huge losses, while inflicting very few casualties. These would seem to be acts of desperation, since it should be clear to anyone that head-on engagements with US troops are sure to be losing ones.

Drudge is reporting now that the Iraqis are saying that Zarqawi is surrounded.

Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Nakib announced today that AbuMusab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (Iraq), has been surrounded.

The Sofia News Agency reports the Interior Minister as saying, "He is surrounded in a certain area, and we hope for the best'

Of course the press, as Lawrence Kaplan points out, still does not notice the changing trend.