9781310547751_

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this book is based in part on newly declassified documents drawn from the Department of Defenses Harmony database.

Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is a shadow of its former self, primarily because broad sectors of Iraqs Sunni population rejected it after more than three years of active and tacit cooperation. Anger over AQIs brutal radicalism infused the Sunni backlash against jihadists, but AQI also made two fundamental strategic overreaches that exacerbated its alienation from Sunnis in Iraq. First, it incited a sectarian backlash from Iraqi Shia without the means to defend Iraqs Sunnis from the onslaught it provoked. Second, AQI created a formal political entity, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), to dominate Iraq after a U.S. withdrawal without adequate support from Iraqs Sunni population.

These strategic missteps angered and frightened Sunni tribesmen, but the mechanisms of AQIs decline were even more mundane. Pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces compounded the groups endemic operational weaknesses to create a self-reinforcing cycle of command and control failure, tactical mistakes and logistical disconnect that hastened the groups descent into simple thuggery, which reinforced AQIs alienation from local populations.

During AQIs decline, one of its commanders produced a detailed lessons learned document to capture the mistakes AQI made in Iraq. The most important were:

Failure to understand the Iraqi people,
Use of unreliable smugglers in Syria,
Unrealistic expectations of foreign fighters created by al-Qaida propaganda,
Poor cooperation between Emirs,
Tension between foreign fighters and Iraqi members of AQI,
Suicide bombers reneging,
Command structure that diluted authority,
Bureaucratic stovepiping, and
Poor use of financial resources.

...(*_*)9781310547751_

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this book is based in part on newly declassified documents drawn from the Department of Defenses Harmony database.

During AQIs decline, one of its commanders produced a detailed "lessons learned" document to capture the mistakes AQI made in Iraq. The most important were:

...

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