Baghdad, Iraq – U.S. military leaders said Wednesday that they expected the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq to “lash out” soon in response to the continuing American troop surge with “spectacular attacks” designed to aggravate sectarian tensions.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said al-Qaeda in Iraq, which U.S. officials say is linked to Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda, is the principal threat to U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Iraq and “the main accelerant in sectarian violence” despite the group’s small size and mostly foreign membership.
The U.S. military is concentrating on a series of offensives to root out al-Qaeda in Iraq from strongholds in Baghdad and a surrounding belt of cities such as Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of the capital. But Bergner said U.S. troops were also staging simultaneous operations in cities such as Mosul to the north and Ramadi to the west to prevent displaced al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters from resurfacing. He said U.S. forces killed or captured 26 al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders during May and June.
Bergner said U.S. forces were better able to attack al-Qaeda in Iraq because of an additional 28,500 troops ordered into the country this year by President Bush, new alliances with local groups such as the Anbar Salvation Council and new support from average Iraqis.
He said the U.S. military had received 23,000 tips this year from Iraqis, about five times the number received by this time last year.
“Over the past two months, our collective efforts against the al-Qaeda leadership have begun to disrupt their networks and safe havens,” Bergner said at an afternoon news conference in the fortified Green Zone.
Bergner said that al-Qaeda has sent 60 to 80 foreign fighters into Iraq each month, the vast majority through Syria, and that those foreign fighters were enlisted by al-Qaeda in Iraq for 80 percent to 90 percent of suicide bombings in Iraq. Bergner said foreign “facilitators” had formed a link between al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda, recruiting and smuggling equipment and fighters into Iraq.
In one instance earlier Wednesday, Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said, police had detained an Iraqi driver attempting to cross the Syrian border in a Mercedes-Benz sedan loaded with 200 suicide bomb vests packed with explosives.
