Zarqawi desperation after losing Tal Afar causes him to lose crucial Sunni support

Counterrorism Blog:

Only days after Al-Qaida announced the completion of its latest campaign of violence aimed at avenging alleged "massacres" of Sunni Muslims in Tel Afar by the U.S. and Iraqi government, there are growing indications that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida acolytes may be facing the most serious political and operational challenges they have encountered since they first joined the anti-coalition insurgency in mid-2003. The deadly glut of suicide bombings that began on September 8 has undoubtedly caused destruction and chaos--but militants were neither able to undermine the anti-insurgent operation in Tel Afar nor deter Iraqi government efforts to formulate a constitution. [English translations of Al-Qaida's various claims of responsibility for recent suicide bombing attacks are now posted online at Globalterroralert.com]. Instead, renewed apparent threats from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to massacre both Shiite and Sunni "collaborators" have been warily received by many Iraqi Sunnis, leading the respected Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars to issue a statement strongly admonishing Zarqawi:

"There is no religious basis allowing you to take your revenge on the innocent while ignoring the true criminals, nor are there rules stating that the innocent should bear the consequences for the acts of criminals… it is impossible for someone who claims to rely on the laws of Allah to make his decisions based on emotions and personal grudges. Such a dangerous statement only serves the most deadly wishes of our enemies—the desire to tear apart our country and to initiate a battle amongst the faithful... The best course of action for those who came to help eliminate the foreign occupation in our land is advocacy, not killing and annihilating the perspectives of others... we would like to remind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that religion can be used to advocate and we ask him to retract all the threats he has made because they damage the image of the jihad and take away from the success of the jihadi resistance project in Iraq, and it increases the bloodshed suffered by innocent Iraqis.”

The AMS statement is indeed significant and represents compelling evidence of a real break between mainstream Sunni Iraqis and fringe Salafist extremists, including many foreign fighters drawn from across the Middle East....
Zarqawi exhanged communications publicily following the reproach but the damage was done. As I pointed out at the time attacks on unemployed noncombatants has no effect on al Qaeda's deteriating military situation becuase it has no effect on the forces that are attmepting to destroy al Qaeda. Since the war as evelved into a war of attrition, the attrition is wholly onesided, i.e. the enemy is losing his combat forces and is too weak to attack our combat forces. The math in that equation says the enemy is going to lose and less he is rescued by the antiwar left in the US.

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