Iraqi Police Find 30 Bodies, Most Beheaded

[Ted Striker]

We've turned a corner

Mission Accomplished

Bring It On

The Insurgency is in its Last Throes

[MRT144]

those arent anecdotes, those are platitudes

[Ted Striker]

[ajbera]

I wonder what they do with the heads. Make a big skull shrine like Jeffrey Dahmer wanted to do?

[Barnabas]

Cant we divide the country in 3?

1 for the Kurds

1 for the Sunnies

1 for the Shii ?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It's far to simplistic to say its Al Queda. The Sunnis and Shi'ites hate each other. It's like the former Yugoslavia. Everything went to **** when Tito died, because the strong government couldn't force people to get along. Once there is a power vaccum, the sects want to break away.

They were distrustful but willing to live together when I was there. Most communities were mixed and it was primarially the unmixed communities where most of the violence occured mostly because the radical sectarians could find a foot hold there.

The shia were pretty much following the orders of their religious leaders (which is what you would expect given the Shi'a are supposed to follow the ayotollahs as if they were their prophet) however things seem to now be falling apart and the shi'a are seeking revenge for the sunni attacks upon their shrines plus are fed up with the continuing violence which they blame on the sunnis. For the last year I have been saying this will end in civil war and now more then ever I believe it is so. The inevitable end to this will be a shi'a-kurd alliance against the sunnis which will see the sunnis badly beaten. It's just a numbers game of 755 of the pop vs 20% of the pop. Toss in that the Shia-Kurd alliance will control the government and the military and you see why they'll win.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Oerdin

For the last year I have been saying this will end in civil war and now more then ever I believe it is so.

I said it first.

[Pekka]

I think GePap hit the nail...

But me thinks, who benefits from this the most? AQ does. This is what they really need and want, must be. Even if it wasn't to grab the power in the mix, chaos is what they should prefer in the lines of 'if we can't win, neither can our enemy win'. Kind of like guerilla mindset, just make sure you can't be defeated.

Even if they aren't behind any of this, I imagine they should have realized the dream now and should work for it. So they might be participants if they weren't the initiators.

One thing is for sure, prevalent civil war brings more pressure to the coalition troops to leave. And in that mix, AQ has better chances. They don't have to WIN any battles. They just have to make sure they're in the mix when some kind of power structure starts to establish itself and it shouldn't be too difficult.

One thing everyone should think about is the implications of this. Before the war on terror, AQ was at where it was.. if they should be able to get into the mix in the new Iraqi marching order, they might actually end up stronger and for sure in better position. It is the 'we're going to kick their ass' that has a real chance to turn into what AQ might have had 'let the chips lay as they may' and see what happens. If they weren't the initiators for this intense national build up, as participants now, they have succeeded. There is just no way you could ever realistically compare the situation and evaluate the loss of some top men, and equal that as bigger damage to AQ. Top men can be always replaced. The org is deep. A chance is in front of us where they can actually get new hold AND gain the time factor, meaning that they have time and space now at their use. Meaning they aren't on the run, they are refreshing themselves for new things.

This is very dangerous from terrorist aspect and not forgetting the Iraq situation as its own thing.

[Eli]

Speaking of which, a week or two ago there was a large kidnapping of roughly 50 people. At first the media made a pretty large fuss over it but I didnt notice any follow ups? Does anyone know/remember what happened to them?

[Agathon]

nm

[Agathon]

Iraqi Police Find 30 Bodies, Most Beheaded

Iraqi police are interested in speaking to this man...