Not dead yet. “Al-Qaida in Iraq says it’s behind embassy hits,” by Lara Jakes and Qassim Abdul-Zahra for The Associated Press, April 9:
BAGHDAD — An al-Qaida front group claimed Friday that it carried out triple suicide bombings outside foreign embassies, underscoring U.S. and Iraqi fears the terror group is attempting to make a comeback.
The bombings were part of a wave of attacks over the last week that claimed about 120 lives in and around Baghdad, which al-Qaida in Iraq appears to have designated its battleground to drag the country into civil war.
National security officials in Baghdad and Washington said the terror network is looking to exploit political chaos left by the disputed March 7 parliamentary elections to regroup. The unrelenting violence also has cast doubt on the abilities of Iraqi security forces that are responsible for protecting the country while American forces begin to head home.
Al-Qaida sees “a very small window of opportunity before this government forms,” U.S. Brig. Gen. Ralph Baker said in an interview Friday.
He said it was still unclear “whether we’re seeing a resurgence, or whether we’re seeing a gasp and a surge, a last-ditch effort to reassert themselves.” But, he said, the latter “would be my best opinion at this point.”…
If he or anyone else in the military had ever demonstrated that they had a clue about the nature of the jihad doctrine, I might have more trust in this assessment.