Marines Still in Control of Qaim

Someone let the knee-jerk reactionaries know what the Marines think about the report of al-Qaeda holding the Iraqi border town of Qaim. The invaluable Bill Roggio does some follow-up here:

The Washington Post had this story right when they referred to al Qaeda’s declaration as a show of force, yet proceeded to project an image of al Qaeda strength and command of the city. Perhaps they should have crosschecked the statements of their unidentified sources in Qaim with the battalion of U.S. Marines currently stationed there.

Since Bill scooped the story, read his whole post. The short of it: al-Qaeda, while is still engaging and fighting hard in the region, are not anywhere close to "capturing" and "holding" Qaim (where a battalion of Marines are firmly planted).

I commented on this story here. I felt that a scenario where al-Qaeda not only came out and captured a town, but also publically asserted itself in the aftermath, belied their strengths:

Al-Qaeda's strength relies on it's unpredictability and the ability to operate as a losely connected movement under the radar. Al-Qaeda is better at playing the role of bombing soft-targets and slipping back into the populace. Not only are they good at spreading terror, they are masterful at frustrating a superior enemy. While America desires a moment where all of al-Qaeda comes together to fight the Americans in an all-out fight, al-Qaeda normally disintegrates, retreats and regroups away from the scene.

So far, each time al-Qaeda decided to make a stand against U.S. forces, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have been severely routed. These situations were always a test of America's will. For example, they turned Fallujah into a safe haven, because, just as they believed before September 11th, America would be too averse to casualties to follow through. Even though they expected America to attack, they believed that the bloody images and scenes of death on CNN would cause an uproar at home, thus causing the leadership to fall short.

Quite naturally, this story baited the doomsayers. Al-Qaeda is quite adept at information warfare, and this latest tactic could very likely have been deliberate. Their goal is to make us believe that despite our modern army, superior resources and past successes, we cannot contain or beat this allusive and schrewd enemy. They want American perception to reflect despair and defeat. Although these adjectives describing al-Qaeda are correct, the conclusion that we cannot beat them is wrong.

For a better picture and a more accurate perspective on how we are going about defeating the insurgency in Western Iraq (our strategy and how it is playing out), read Bill Roggio's posts here here here and here.