The Progressive Daily Beacon.
February 24th, 2007 | Day 55 | Week 08

Today's Video

Obama Rally: Time to Bring our Military Home



Previous Opinions

War, Republicans, Evangelical Christians, Child Well-Being, and American Poverty

A. Alexander - 2/23/07
Of the 21 industrialized nations that UNICEF studied for "Child Well-Being," children living in Britain and the United States ranked last and second to last respectively. Considering the fact that each country's ...more

Republican Party Perverts the Essence of What it Means to be American

A. Alexander - 2/22/07
The scope and magnitude to which today's radical and extremist Republican Party have managed to pervert the very essence of what it means to be American, is vulgar as it is dangerous. ...more

An Exploration of Republican Iraq War (Il)logic

A. Alexander - 2/21/07
Let's explore Republican (il)logic. If a person supports a war that was based on falsified "intelligence" and an additional billion false accusations, not to mention a heaping pile of fear mongering claims ...more

History and the Evidence Says Mister Bush's Latest 'Surge' Plan Will Fail

A. Alexander - 2/20/07
Like all the other neoconservative concoctions before it, President Bush's latest Iraq 'surge' plan is dissolving into an expected and predicted disastrous failure. Contrary to FOX News' blabbering bores like O'Reilly and ...more

The American People Must Never Dismiss the Lies that Led to the Iraq War

A. Alexander - 2/19/07
"Regardless of how we got into Iraq," Mister Bush's apologists and supporters say, "we have an obligation now, to stay until the 'job is done'." That is a false argument designed to ...more

Progressive Daily Beacon News


For original PDB story - click here - Cached/copied 02-25-07 mpg

E-MAIL THIS PAGE
PRINT THIS PAGE print this page.


US General in Iraq Says Not Many al-Qaeda Fighters:

'Make no mistake, this is a homegrown Sunni insurgency'



Not al-Qaeda...but everyone knew that
Not al-Qaeda...but everyone knew that
CBS News, February 24th, 2007

Less than two percent of the nearly 3,000 people detained across northern Iraq in the past six months were foreigners, Generals Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said.

"Make no mistake, this is a homegrown Sunni insurgency," he said.

Also, a new security crackdown in Baghdad has encouraged mostly Sunni insurgents to flee the capital for surrounding provinces, especially Diyala, Mixon said. "We're working our way into the Baghdad security plan, and we won't be into the thick of it until late spring or summer. I expect more violence in Diyala through then."

But the operations have grown deadlier, complicated by what may be an influx of Sunni and Shiite fighters flushed out of Baghdad by the stepped-up security operations there. One U.S. battalion has lost 17 men here since October, accounting for more casualties in four months than an entire U.S. brigade lost the year before.

Direct fire attacks on U.S. soldiers are up 70 percent in Diyala since last summer, according to Col. David W. Sutherland, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Brigade.

Mixon blamed the violence on a robust Sunni insurgency fueled by former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, rather than on foreign fighters or the Sunni-Shiite conflict that has enveloped Baghdad.