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Al Qaeda's dilemma in western Iraq

Bill Roggio:

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If the Qaim region is successfully taken and held, al Qaeda and the insurgency’s vital connection to support across the Syrian border will be in jeopardy. As noted by many commentors of this site, the act of clearing the towns of potential informants indicates a level of desperation by al Qaeda. By clearing the towns, they may be able to reduce the intelligence assets of the Coalition, making precision airstrikes difficult to execute. But there is propaganda value in keeping the residents in place. Those who have left cannot be used as human shields or hostages, and fewer civilians will mean fewer non-combatant casualties.

Al Qaeda has few good options. If they clear the town to reduce the Coalition’s intelligence capabilities, they lose the propaganda value of high numbers of dead Iraqis killed at the infidel (although it should be noted that the latest large scale engagement in Tal Afar yielded few civilian casualties, and Tal Afar is more densely populated than the towns along the Euphrates). If they run, they concede the strategic border crossing to the Coalition. Movement to another location is possible, but the Coalition is in the process of preparing the Euphrates valley for future strikes by establishing bases along the river. If they stand and fight, they will lose as they have in every open engagement at the platoon level or great since the beginning of the insurgency. Running from the Americans and the Iraqi Army doesn’t make for a good recruiting tool.

This pretty much tracks what I have been saying about the situation in the five towns near the Syrain border that al Qaeda is trying to dominate right now. One of the ironies of this war is taht whenever they do that and try to impose the al Qaeda version of shari'a law, they drive more Iraqis over to our side. If we could just get them to take over a Berkley....