IRAQ: The Iraqi government yesterday claimed to have dealt "fatal blows" to the al-Qaeda operation in Iraq with the capture of its deputy commander, Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, and the arrest or killing of 11 other leading al-Qaeda jihadists.
The arrest of Mr al-Saeedi was announced by the national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, who said that the al-Qaeda militant had been responsible for attacks on Shia Iraqis aimed at provoking civil war, including the bombing of a shrine in Samarra in February, as well as the organisation of death squads.
Mr Rubaie said that after his arrest Mr al-Saeedi provided information which had led to the capture or killing of 11 other leading figures from the group. He did not identify these by name.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was founded by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike in June. Mr Rubaie said Mr al-Saeedi had been operating out of the same area and was seized at a house in the course of a "very precise" Iraqi military operation.
It is unclear how big a role al-Qaeda plays in the insurgency or in sectarian killings, and despite recent successes in targeting the group's leadership in Iraq, US military leaders are increasingly pessimistic about what they see as an accelerating slide towards civil war.
In its quarterly report to Congress on the situation in Iraq, the Pentagon said that Iraqi casualties had increased by 50 per cent in the past three months. Around 2,000 Iraqi civilians are dying each month in sectarian violence, many of them shot by death squads. The report quotes the Baghdad coroner's office as saying 90 per cent of the bodies of 1,800 victims of violence it received in July showed that they had been executed. "It's a pretty sober report this time," Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defence for international security, said. "The last quarter has been rough. The level of violence is up."
The report found that pessimism was also taking root among ordinary Iraqis. Polling data collected by the International Republican Institute showed that as recently as last April almost 80 per cent of Iraqis thought their general situation would be better in a year. By June, less than half were optimistic about their future.
In a poll published yesterday by Time magazine and the Discovery Channel, 69 per cent of Americans said they believed the "war on terror" would not be won in the next decade.