U.S. commander says insurgency in north-central Iraq is static in size but

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.wtnh.com/global/story.asp?s=3599194&ClientType=Printable

U.S. commander says insurgency in north-central Iraq is static in size but evolving in nature

(Washington-AP, July 15, 2005 11:50 AM) _ In a sign of the Iraq insurgency's resilience, an American general said Friday that in his command area in north-central Iraq the level of violence is about where it stood prior to the January elections.

Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of coalition forces in four provinces that include the key cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and Samarra, said a segment of the insurgency that he called religious extremists has not grown in numbers but has recently "coalesced a little bit more" with a Kurdish insurgent group known as Ansar al-Sunna as well as with the al-Qaida wing in Iraq that is headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Saddam Hussein loyalists, whom the U.S. military calls "former regime elements," and Sunni Arab "rejectionists" appear to be less active in the insurgency in north-central Iraq, Taluto said. On the other hand, among the religious extremists there has been "more cooperation or passing of information between a variety of groups."

He said the religious extremists are responsible for a recent jump in the number of suicide bomb attacks in that region of Iraq. The number of those attacks grew from a monthly average of five to eight prior to the January elections to 15 in May and June, Taluto said, adding that so far in July there have been only two.

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[DS1]

1. Or to put it differently, they're making them just as fast as we can kill

them.

[maddezmom]

2. General: Iraq Insurgency Static in Size

WASHINGTON - In a sign of the Iraq insurgency's resilience, an American general said Friday that in his command area in north-central Iraq the level of violence is about where it stood prior to the January elections.


Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of coalition forces in four provinces that include the key cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and Samarra, said a segment of the insurgency that he called religious extremists has not grown in numbers but has recently "coalesced a little bit more" with a Kurdish insurgent group known as Ansar al-Sunna as well as with the al-Qaida wing in Iraq that is headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Saddam Hussein loyalists, whom the U.S. military calls "former regime elements," and Sunni Arab "rejectionists" appear to be less active in the insurgency in north-central Iraq, Taluto said. On the other hand, among the religious extremists there has been "more cooperation or passing of information between a variety of groups."

He said the religious extremists are responsible for a recent jump in the number of suicide bomb attacks in that region of Iraq. The number of those attacks grew from a monthly average of five to eight prior to the January elections to 15 in May and June, Taluto said, adding that so far in July there have been only two.


more:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050715/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_military_1

[lazarus]

3. So this means

they're just getting more efficient at killing us. Sounds good.

[maddezmom]

4. BINGO

and did you read the end of the article about the Iraqi security forces....:eyes:

[Voltaire99]

5. Static cling's a bitch.

Get out of their country, general.

[WhiteTara]

6. that' s our uniter for you

uniting all those people agains us.

[PurityOfEssence]

7. Yet another resolute assessment of things we don't know at all

You'd think those dead-enders would give up by now.

On and on and on and on and on we make specific and certain pronouncements about what we're facing, and we don't know dick. We don't know to what degree there's a leadership among the insurgency. We just don't know.