Al Qaeda in Iraq: Demoralized, Dejected, and Dead

"I am Abu Tariq, Emir of al-Layin and al-Mashadah Sector," it began.

Over 16 pages, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader detailed the organization's demise in his sector. He once had 600 men, but now his force was down to 20 or fewer, he wrote. They had lost weapons and allies. Abu Tariq focused his anger in particular on the Sunni fighters and tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the U.S.-backed Sunni Sahwa, or "Awakening," forces.

"We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers," Abu Tariq wrote. "We must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely in order to achieve victory at the end."

The diary is the U.S. military's latest weapon in a concerted information campaign to undermine al-Qaeda in Iraq and its efforts to regroup and shift tactics. The movement remains strong in northern areas, and many American commanders consider it the country's most immediate security threat. In recent days, U.S. officials have released seized videos showing the Sunni insurgent group training children to kidnap and kill, as well as excerpts of a 49-page letter allegedly written by another al-Qaeda leader that describes the organization as weak and beset by low morale.

The US has been extraordinarily slow in countering Islamist propaganda, but the recent intel finds have been illuminating. The Islamists are failing in Iraq.

Al Qaeda is battered and beset on all sides by the US and coalition forces, the Iraqi military, and the Sunni tribes that formerly sheltered the Islamists but turned on them when they saw the true deadly nature of al Qaeda jihadis. Wanton murder and carnage turned Sunni tribes that were allies for al Qaeda into mortal enemies, and that trend continues in Iraq.