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60 insurgent leaders captured in the last month

Reuters:

U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed or captured 15,000 people over the past year in their fight against an insurgency ravaging Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in the country said Wednesday.

In the past month alone, they had seized around 60 leaders of the various Islamist and Baathist groups trying to drive the Americans from the war-torn country, General George Casey said.

...

"If you look back over the last year we estimate we have killed or captured about 15,000 people as part of this counter-insurgency," Casey, the only four-star American general in Iraq, told reporters.

"Just in this month we have picked up around 60 key members of the Zarqawi network and key members of the former regime," he said, referring to the group led by al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"The level of violence in 14 of the 18 provinces in Iraq is four incidents or arrests a day," said Casey, who commands 150,000 U.S. troops. "It is primarily confined to four provinces. It has not spread to 80 percent of the population."

Reuters underplays the significance of the loss of leadership to the insurgency. If you look at all the successful counterinsurgencies, one of the common elements is the captur or killing of the leadership.