Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'

[Markass]

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an â??extraordinary crisisâ?�. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military â??created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fightâ?�. The terrorist group's security structure suffered â??total collapseâ?�.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province â?? once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. â??I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,â?� the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.

â??We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,â?� he says. â??Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.â?�

Assuming the two documents are authentic â?? and the US military insists that they are â?? they provide a rare insight into an organisation thrown into turmoil by the rise of the Awakening movement. More than 80,000 Sunnis have joined the tribal groups of â??concerned local citizensâ?� [CLCs] that have helped to eject al-Qaeda from swaths of western and northern Iraq, including much of Baghdad.
Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear' - Times Online

Looks like we got the bad guys on the run.....remember that when ya vote! Why let some asshat fly a white flag when we're on the way to victory?

Have a good one!:s4:

so what happens if those sunni's we armed and trained end up turning on us..? Another surge???