“State of Jihadi Terrorism — June 29, 2005,” an incisive analysis by B.Raman (thanks to Looney Tunes), via the South Asia Analysis Group:
Since April, 2005,there has been a co-ordinated escalation of acts of jihadi terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State of India. It is my assessment that the coming months will see more and not less incidents of jihadi terrorism in these three areas.
2. In Iraq, there are signs of a decrease in the operations of the Arab Sunni resistance fighters, who owe their loyalty to the old Baath Party disbanded by the Americans after they occupied the country. They are distinct from the Arab Sunni terrorists of foreign origin, who owe their loyalty to Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
3. As I have been repeatedly pointing out in my articles in the past, the Iraqi resistance fighters have been largely depending on attacks with hand-held weapons such as rifles, machine guns, hand-grenades etc or mortars. Incidents involving the use of such weapons have been less this year than last year. The frequency and ferocity of the mortar attacks on the American-protected Green Zone in Baghdad seem to have come down. Iraqis, like the Afghans, never believed in suicide terrorism in the past and there is no reason to think that they do so now, whatever be their feelings of humiliation over the continued occupation of their country by the Americans.
4. The pro-Al Qaeda foreign terrorists, on the other hand, have been largely relying on indiscriminate suicide bombings— car bombs and human-bomb-carriers— spreading death and destruction. There are very few Iraqi Sunnis in their ranks—less than 15 per cent. The foreign terrorists have been able to step up their attacks in a co-ordinated manner since April. The American and Iraqi Security forces have so far found no effective answer to them. The seemingly inexhaustible flow of suicide bombers of foreign origin to the ranks of Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq speaks of the ineffectiveness and/or unwillingness of the security agencies of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan to stop them. It also speaks of the ineffectiveness of the security agencies of West Europe, from where an increasing number of jihadi recruits are going to Iraq. From the UK alone, about 70 volunteers are reported to have gone to Iraq—many of them of South Asian, mostly Pakistani, origin.
Read it all.