Paging the NYT: Al Qaeda defeated in Baghdad

Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network doing the work the U.S. media doesn't want to do.

Al Maliki: Iraq Al Qaeda chased in Baghdad

Saturday, February 16, 2008 08:56 GMT

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki said that Al Qaeda has been chased in Baghdad, vowing to eradicate the rest of Al Qaeda related groups in Mosul. Al Maliki called on Iraqi security forces to strike instability pursuers in Iraq with an iron first. He urged them as well to stay alert and vigilant.

In other positive developments.

BAGHDAD, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Attacks by insurgents and rival sectarian militias have fallen up to 80 percent in Baghdad and concrete blast walls that divide the capital could soon be removed, a senior Iraqi military official said on Saturday.

Lieutenant-General Abboud Qanbar said the success of a year-long clampdown named "Operation Imposing Law" had reined in the savage violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein.

"In a time when you could hear nothing but explosions, gunfire and the screams of mothers and fathers and sons, and see bodies that were burned and dismembered, the people of Baghdad were awaiting Operation Imposing Law," Qanbar told reporters.

Qanbar pointed to the number of dead bodies turning up on the capital's streets as an indicator of success.

In the six weeks to the end of 2006, an average of 43 bodies were found dumped in the city each day as fierce sectarian fighting threatened to turn into full-scale civil war.

That figure fell to four a day in 2008, in the period up to Feb. 12, said Qanbar, who heads the Baghdad security operation.

And finally, the video I posted earlier this week of Al Qaeda in Iraq apparently burning prisoners alive received its first MSM coverage on Friday.

FoxNews.com posted the video and included a translation of what the Al Qaeada operatives were saying as they doused the prisoners in flammable liquid.

"And now that we have captured these scums who committed this dreadful crime, we will burn them with this fire," the Al Qaeda leader says in Arabic. "The same fire which they committed their crime with.

"And I swear by God almighty that, I swear by God almighty that we will have no mercy on them," he continues. "Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar."

The Jawa Report has an unedited version of another recently discovered terrorist video showing a 12-year-old beheading a prisoner. You can see it here. I was unable to watch the whole thing. It's that gruesome.