Has the Tide Has Turned Against Al Qaeda?

The news about al Qaeda is certainly grim these days. They're not only on the defensive, but their capabilities are severely degraded and their remaining leaders have taken to posting audio tapes (recycled?) rather than more professionally produced videos. Osama bin Laden hasn't been seen in an actual video in some time now, and Zawahiri has taken to making audio tapes as well.

Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq as the Iraqi government along with the Anbar Awakening have sent the jihadists packing. This doesn't necessarily mean that the terrorists cannot carry out mass casualty attacks, but their are increasingly more concerned with their own survival than planning new attacks. There are also fewer joining the cause, which means that the jihadists are busy trying to force women, children, and mentally disabled into being human bombs.

Various radical Islamists have been busy issuing their own fatwas that counter those proffered by Zawahiri and bin Laden in the past, suggesting that the terrorist group may be splintering because of the failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the terrible toll among civilians around the world - including the one group hardest hit - fellow Muslims.

Now, the leaders of the Anbar Awakening have offered up an interesting deal. They want to help go after Osama bin Laden in the Afghan/Pakistani hinterlands.

In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said: "I have no problem with this; if they ask me, I will do it."

The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Today, the tribe-based militias formed to protect Anbaris from Al Qaeda are forming a political alliance poised to unseat the confessional Sunni parties currently in parliament in the provincial elections scheduled for the fall and the federal ones scheduled for 2009.

One has to wonder whether the Anbari tribes would have ever considered such a move if they thought that the US would cut and run as leading Democrats, including presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama had publicly stated repeatedly since 2004?

This is yet another sign that our efforts in Iraq are paying off by building new alliances and relationships that strengthen US strategic interests in a very volatile region of the world.

That isn't to say that things are all peachy. Gaza is becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda, and is yet another reason to go after Hamas. Hamas' Islamists bent has also meant that Christian minorities are threatened as well, and those Muslims who aren't nearly observant enough for the Islamists will soon find themselves in the same position as their Iraqi brethren who saw firsthand the barbarism of al Qaeda.