|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0201/p01s03-woiq.htm
For Iraq's Insurgents, What Next?
(Christian Science Monitor) Scott Peterson - * While no one expects the violence to end, Iraqis say a new political dynamic is at play: with government more firmly in Iraqi hands, future attacks may no longer be viewed as against American occupation, but against Iraqis themselves. "The vote will give some legitimacy to the new government," says one Iraqi doctor. * After the Fallujah offensive last November, and especially in recent weeks, experts say, U.S. military intelligence has improved, leading to the arrest of several top aides to insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as of a key car bomb builder. U.S. Army Col. Mike Murray says recent explosions have involved "lower quality" car bombs and attacks with fewer explosives, which are taking less of a toll than months past. * However, Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary, University of London, warns that the insurgency itself is made up of 60 different, mostly autonomous, groups, and that Zarqawi - with just 200 loyalists, who have claimed some of the worst atrocities in Iraq in the past year - is a "fringe player." * "The problem is that for every [insurgent] captured or killed, five are coming along the assembly line," suggests Sajjan Gohel, a terrorism expert who heads the Asia Pacific Foundation in London. "They are different groups, but bounded by the common ideology of forcing the Americans out. They won't give up. They will come back again and try to do as much damage as possible."