One Brick Short

This comes from the Armed Forces press so you need to take it with some salt and maybe a little Texas Pete, but it sure sounds great:

Despicable terrorist-performed acts of kidnappings, extortion and murder do not “play well” among the Iraqi populace, according to Air Force Col. Donald J. Bacon, chief of special operations and intelligence information in Multinational Force Iraq’s Strategic Communications Division.

A terrorist-made video captured during a Dec. 4 anti-insurgent operation conducted between Baqouba and Baghdad that depicts 11- to 12-year-old Iraqi boys being trained to commit terrorist acts is an example of how low al Qaeda will go, Bacon said. And the Feb. 1 double-suicide bombing conducted in Baghdad by two young 17-year-old girls with Down Syndrome, an attack that killed more than 70 people, has outraged Iraqi citizens, he added.

A recently released video shows Iraqi commandos rescuing an 11-year-old Iraqi boy during a Jan. 29 operation conducted northeast of Baghdad, Bacon said. Three days earlier, the youth had been taken for ransom by al Qaeda agents, who demanded $100,000, then $80,000, from the boy’s parents, threatening to behead the boy. The boy’s father, a mechanic, couldn’t afford to pay the kidnappers.

Intelligence information led Iraqi forces to the kidnappers’ hideout, where the boy was rescued. The al Qaeda kidnapping cell was linked to 26 previous abductions.

Al Qaeda in Iraq conducts kidnappings as a source of income along with extortion, Bacon said. They threaten shopkeepers and other citizens and demand “protection” money. However, the tactics have backfired, Bacon said, noting citizen groups have emerged to help with security across Iraq.

Kidnapping 11-year-old children for ransom and threatening to behead them, training pre-teenage children how to commit terrorist acts, and using mentally disabled young women as suicide bombers reflect al Qaeda’s depraved ideology, Bacon said.

“I think the acts of al Qaeda have undermined their support” among Iraqis, Bacon said. For example, violence across Iraq has decreased 60 percent over the past year, he noted.

While loathsome al Qaeda in Iraq acts may not presage imminent collapse of the group, they do represent desperate tactics that are being adopted because of continuing pressure applied by U.S. and Iraqi security forces and the contributions of concerned local citizens groups, the colonel said.

“We do think these acts are desperate,” Bacon said. With the improved security situation in Baghdad, “it is harder for al Qaeda to get in car bombs.”

What cheers me, and could lead to fewer American troops in the future, is the fact that the rescue operations were conducted by Iraqi forces on information supplied by Iraqis. If the Iraqis are doing it for themselves, we can come home. Rock on Iraq, kick some Qaeda booty.