THE leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is attempting to set up his own mini-army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.
Faced with a shortage of foreign fighters willing to undertake suicide missions, Zarqawi wants to turn his group into a more traditional force mounting co-ordinated guerrilla raids on coalition targets.
Al-Qaeda is sending training and planning experts to help to set up the force and infiltrate members into Iraq with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the sources said.
Let's hope this is true. The only reason al Qaeda has had any success thus far againt our troops is because they've utilized unconventional warfare techniques. Suicide bombers are a difficult thing to defend against. Our troops will have a much better time fighting against a more traditional, organized military.
Plus, let's not forget what it means when Zarqawi runs out of willing suicide bombers. Zarqawi's war against America is a "holy war" waged by zealots. If al Qaeda is running out of fodder for its sucide attacks it speaks to a shortage of believers in Zarqawi's mission. That is also wonderful news, if true.
On a related note, Harold Hutchinson over at StrategyPage is laying out the reasons why al Qaeda is losing in Iraq:
From the moment the United States and al Qaeda began fighting in Afghanistan, the terrorists were looking for a chance to re-create images similar to those of American troops being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993 or Walter Cronkite calling the Vietnam War a stalemate in 1968. It was hoped that such a moment would cause a dramatic drop in support for the war among the American people and force the United States out of Iraq. It did not happen.
The first problem was that al Qaeda failed to realize just how much the terrain had shifted on the media battlefield, particularly the growth of alternative outlets. In 1993, CNN was the only 24-hour news network. In 1996, two other 24-hour news networks were founded, MSNBC on July 15, and Fox News on October 7. These started to establish competition. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Fox News began pulling ahead of the other two networks, largely because it was taking a position that was seen as being reasonably supportive of the American efforts.
Also on the media front, the Internet was already becoming a major player. In 1998, Matt Drudge was showing that one person with a web site could break a major story. In 2004, a few bloggers were able to start the chain of events that led to Dan Rather's retirement from CBS. In 2006, bloggers are now an acknowledged player on the media battlefield. These efforts were dismissed by al Qaeda, and as a result, while al Qaeda hit its target, the effect was grossly minimized due to the fact that the "silent majority" now had tools by which they could be heard. The media created a false picture after the 1968 Tet Offensive, but was unable to do the same in Iraq.
Read the whole thing.