Treasure Trove

It would appear that an enormous amount of intelligence was gathered from the ruins of Zarqawi's bombed house. That in turn has led to even more intelligence finds as leads developed from the captured information are followed up on. The Iraqi government believes that they now have the upper hand on al Qaeda in Iraq.

National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie also said he believed the security situation in the country would improve enough to allow a large number of U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year, and a majority to depart by the end of next year. "And maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid-2008," he said.

Al-Rubaie said a laptop, flashdrive and other documents were found in the debris after the airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader last week outside Baqouba, and more information has been uncovered in raids of other insurgent hideouts since then.

He called it a "huge treasure … a huge amount of information."

When asked how he could be sure the information was authentic, al-Rubaie said "there is nothing more authentic than finding a thumbdrive in his pocket."

"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq," al-Rubaie said, adding that the documents showed al-Qaida is in "pretty bad shape," politically and in terms of training, weapons and media.

"Now we have the upper hand," he said at a news conference in Baghdad. "We feel that we know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we found during the last few days."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, pressed forward with his initiative to crack down on violence in Baghdad. Government forces fanned out across Baghdad for a second day, setting up checkpoints and frisking motorists.

Al-Maliki has promised the crackdown would not target any ethnic or sectarian group.

Between the captured information and the huge security crackdown, I rather suspect the members of al Qaeda who are still free are feeling very nervous at the moment. Overall, that's a good thing. People who are busy looking over their shoulders tend to be too preoccupied to cause mischief. People who are running scared make mistakes. All the signs point to a huge shift in momentum toward the Iraqi government.

UPDATE: AP reports that Major General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman in Iraq has announced that the intelligence has led to 452 raids with 104 terrorists killed and another 759 people captured. 143 of the raids were carried out by Iraqi forces acting alone while the rest were joint Iraqi and US operations.

Other Links to this Post

1. The Moderate Voice — June 15, 2006 @ 8:37 am

2. Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » The Ripples In The Iraqi Pond — June 15, 2006 @ 9:57 am