Terror group afraid of losing support, Petraeus says

Published Sunday, December 30, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday al-Qaida was becoming increasingly fearful over losing the support of Sunni Arabs and had begun targeting the leaders of tribal councils who have switched allegiances in favor of America.

Gen. David Petraeus made the comments a few hours before a new audiotape of Osama bin Laden emerged, warning Iraq’s Sunni Arabs against joining the councils fighting al-Qaida or participating in any unity government.

Petraeus said that al-Qaida’s fear of the councils was obvious. The councils, along with the inflow of thousands of additional U.S. troops, and a six-month cease-fire announced in August by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have led to a 60 percent decline in violence since June.

"They attach enormous importance to these Concerned Local Citizens groups, these tribes that have turned against them, and to the general sense that Sunni Arab communities have rejected them more and more around Iraq," Petraeus told a small group of Western journalists.

"You can see this in their public statements," he added. "They are trying to counter this, and they have done so by attacking them," which is increasingly turning Sunnis against them.

He said this shift was pushing Sunnis back into the political process they effectively abandoned after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraq’s Sunni Arabs boycotted the first elections in January 2005.

"It is very, very important for them to have a stake in the new Iraq," he said of the Sunnis and urged Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to reach out to the minority.

"This is about helping the Iraqi government win the hearts and minds" of the Sunnis, he added.

Iraq’s interior ministry spokesman claimed that 75 percent of al-Qaida in Iraq’s terrorist network had been destroyed in 2007 and gave some of the credit to the rise of anti-al-Qaida in Iraq councils.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said the disruption of the terrorist network was because of improvements in the Iraqi security forces - which he said had made strides in weeding out commanders and officers with ties to militias or who were involved in criminal activities.

Khalaf’s assertion that three-fourths of al-Qaida in Iraq had been destroyed could not be independently verified, and he did not elaborate on how the percentage was determined.

"Their activity is now limited to certain places north of Baghdad," he said at a news conference.

Petraeus said that despite a number of successes against al-Qaida in recent months, destroying the group was still a top concern for the U.S. military and Iraq’s biggest security challenge in 2008.

But he warned that al-Qaida remained active and lethal.

"It is the most significant enemy Iraq faces because it carries out the most horrific attacks, that causes the greatest damage to infrastructure and seems most intent on re-igniting ethno-sectarian violence," Petraeus told reporters.