Al Qaeda in Iraq is Off its Game

It might seem audacious of me to suggest that al Qaeda is having problems in a month that saw more civilians killed by al Qaeda terrorists than any other month of the war. But they are off their game, and they appear to be in real trouble.

Before I explain why, let me breakdown civilian casualties in Iraq for the month of August in several ways. Yesterday, I noted that there were just under 1500 civilian casualties for the month of August recorded by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. An important goal of the troop surge was to reduce the number of casualties occurring in the capital city of Baghdad, even it meant that casualties elsewhere might increase. That's exactly what has happened. Here are civilian casualties in Baghdad over the last 10 months:


The blue bars represent the months during which the surge has been operational. You can see that casualties are down by 50% from their peak levels in January. Those casualties dropped immediately after troops began surging into Baghdad in February, not because of anything the troops did but because Muqtada al Sadr decided to cooperate and ordered his Mahdi Army militia off the streets. Rogue elements of the Mahdi Army continued the execution campaign at a reduced level, and that campaign started to worsen again as time went by (e.g., in May). Fortunately, real signs of improvement were again evident by August. Although people are killed in Baghdad for a variety of reasons, the reduction in execution-style killings by Shiite militias in Baghdad is the main reason why overall civilian casualties have come so far down in the capital. Here is another chart that looks very much like the first, except that it shows only the number of people killed in execution-style slayings that are the signature of the Shiite militias (i.e., the roving death squads in Baghdad):


Killings of this type peaked in December and January at around 800, but they were down to about 400 in August. For the last 3 days of August (not shown in the figure), such killings have been the lowest I have ever seen (only 17 in the last 3 days). I don't know if this is a trend, but it might be related to Muqtada al Sadr's order from a few days ago requiring that Shiite militias cease all hostilities for 6 months. If that's why these killings have dropped even further in recent days, then he had more control over the "rogue" elements than I previously thought.

While Baghdad is considerably safer than it was before, casualties elsewhere in Iraq have periodically spiked, especially last month:


Look at those last 3 months in particular because I'd like to focus on them for a moment.

In June, overall civilian casualties in all of Iraq were fairly low because casualties in Baghdad were relatively low (shown in my first chart) and casualties elsewhere in Iraq were also relatively low (shown in this chart). But in July and August, casualties in Baghdad decreased even further, yet casualties elsewhere increased rather dramatically (especially in August). Do you know why? If you are a reporter for the mainstream media, you think that it means that the "civil war" has just spread to other areas now that extra U.S. troops are in Baghdad. In your mind, "insurgents" have just taken the war elsewhere. If that's what you think, it means that you place too much value on thoughts that cross your mind and too little value on the evidence.

The reason why violence has spiked in other areas of Iraq is that al Qaeda used its suicide bombers in northern areas of Iraq to get back in the game. The next chart shows the number of civilians killed by al Qaeda in Iraq over the last 3 months (the period during which the troop surge has been operational). To make this chart, I attributed to al Qaeda all deaths caused by suicide bombers as well as all deaths caused by car and truck bombs that indiscriminately targeted innocent civilians (Shiites, usually). Such attacks usually involve suicide bombings even when media reports fail to say so, and they are likely to involve al Qaeda even if no suicide bomber was involved (because the Sunni insurgents do not indiscriminately slaughter Shiite civilians -- only al Qaeda in Iraq does that in an effort to incite civil war). Here is the chart:


Most of the deaths in August were caused by that suicide attack against members of a small Kurdish sect - the Yazidis. Note that the same increasing trend would be clearly evident even if I only counted victims of confirmed suicide bombers (who almost everyone agrees are controlled by al Qaeda). If you are only willing to attribute to al Qaeda deaths that were known to be caused by suicide bombers (85% of whom are known to be foreign), then the numbers for June, July and August would be 77, 146, and 546, respectively. If you are unwilling to attribute even these deaths to al Qaeda, well, go do some homework (start here and then read more about them here).

Despite this "success," my claim is that al Qaeda is off its game. How could that be? Because al Qaeda terrorists slaughter innocent civilians for strategic reasons, not just because they hate them. This is always the case. In Spain, for example, the goal was to get the Socialist Party elected so they would withdraw troops from Iraq (thereby splitting the coalition). It worked like a charm. In Iraq, the goal is to provoke the Shiite militias into killing Sunnis. Why? Because sectarian conflict like that destabilizes the government and demoralizes Americans. In August, however, al Qaeda had difficulty attacking Shiites, so they settled for the Yazidis instead. The problem for al Qaeda is that this is not going to enrage the Shiite militias at all. Thus, this spectacular attack by al Qaeda is one of the few over the last 2 years that did not fit with Zarqawi's ingenious plan to destabilize Iraq.

If they can't provoke the Shiites right now, at least they can make some headway convincing the American public that the situation in Iraq is hopeless. That's important for them because General Petreaus is preparing to give his report to Congress mere days from now. But to my surprise, it does not seemed to have worked. That is, as far as I can tell, Americans were not demoralized by al Qaeda's most spectacular attack yet. Only left wing commentators seem to be responding on cue. For example, here is Kevin Drum with an extremely superficial analysis of casualties in which he laments the apparent lack of success of the troop surge:

The chart above shows war-related violent deaths for the entire year of 2007 as compiled by the Times. What's remarkable is that not only does it not show any decrease since the beginning of the surge in February, but it doesn't even show a significant dip during summer, traditionally the quietest season in Iraq.

The summer months are "traditionally the quietest season in Iraq?" This is not a man who has been paying attention to casualties in Iraq for last couple of years. A look at my chart from yesterday shows that the summer months of 2006 had the highest levels of civilian casualties yet seen (with July being the highest ever at the time). In any case, as I'll make clear in a future post, even the LA Times figures, when properly analyzed (instead of being simply graphed by a rookie data analyst) shows that civilian casualties over the last 3 months average about 250 fewer civilians killed than the average number killed over the 5 preceding months (which is essentially the same story you get from the ICCC figures). By contrast, in the previous summer, casualties for June, July and August were, on average, 132 per month higher than the preceding 5 months. At the time, this was taken by some to mean that casualties were "spiraling out of control." At least no one is making that claim this time around. Civilian casualties are down, but July and August were higher than June (though still below the levels seen in earlier months). Whether things will revert back to baseline or improve more is obviously not knowable.

In any case, al Qaeda is having the effect on left wing analysts that I thought it would have on the American public at large. So far though, the American public seems to be largely unswayed. Al Qaeda can still launch cowardly sneak attacks against unarmed, innocent civilians. Their spectacular attack in August proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it does not seem to have advanced their strategic objectives in any way. Unless they can get back to destroying Shiite mosques and killing Shiite civilians in large numbers, al Qaeda is in trouble (no matter how many Yazidis they manage to kill and how many left wing commentators take that as evidence that the surge is failing). Now that the Sunnis have turned against al Qaeda as well, al Qaeda's days in Iraq days would appear to be numbered.

Then again, I have learned one lesson very well over the last few years: never underestimate al Qaeda. Although they appear to be in trouble, I cannot rule out the possibility that they will find a way to get back in the game (in a big way). We just have to wait and see.