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May 16, 2007

Anbar Repeating In Diyala?

Topics: Iraq

Only yesterday we posted on CNN's report that al-Qaeda was on the verge of collapse in al-Anbar Province. Today AJStrata has it that one of the last throes of al Qaeda in Anbar Province, right before the Sunni's switched allegiences en masse, was the use of Chlorine attacks:

The attacks were a sign of al Qaeda desparation. The use of chemical weapons signaled a willingness to use chemical weapons on Muslims in order to try and regain control over a province in which they were rapidly losing their grip. Chlorine gas is an ugly killer. It is clearly a weapon designed to instill more fear than casualties. It is an indicator of al-Qaeda's situation.

And he says that now we are seeing these same disparate, brutal methods in Diyala ...

When one compares AJStrata's comments to this September 8th, 2006 post by "PotatoStew" at Plead The First, we see that the importance of Anbar and Diyala are even more significant than we might at first think. Looking at the map and reading the post, we see that the four most violent provinces are Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, and Salah ad Din, accounting for about 81% of all attacks as of September 2006. Anbar and Diyala constitute a rather large chunk of the parts of Iraq that were still considered violent at that time.

If Diyala does indeed turn out like what we're seeing in al-Anbar, we're getting closer and closer to real progress, perhaps, but still a long way to bringing out the boxes of cigars.

Posted by Abdul at May 16, 2007 10:27 AM

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