Austin Bay Blog

Saddam?s holdout henchmen are always desperate for headlines. While car bomb attacks on unarmed Iraqi civilians are low-risk (and they continue, particularly against Shiites), public opinion now matters in Iraq, and the thugs? public slaughters have killed too many Iraqis. With support dwindling day by day, the Sunni thugs are once more seeking ?freedom fighter? media status by ?playing the Abu Ghraib? card.

Abu Ghraib has now been attacked twice in a three-day period. Attacks occurred on April 2 and today, April 4. US forces took 44 casualties (most wounds were minor).

US forces, however, are hard targets and the Abu Ghraib complex is heavily fortified. Wire reports conclude the terrorists took 50 casualties (out of an attacking force estimated at 60 gunmen). Their attack did trigger s ?quick reaction force? (QRF) of Apache helicopters.

The April 4 car bomb also took Iraqi civilian lives. While the mere mention of Abu Ghraib may inflame the Guardian and the DailyKos, for everyone else?particularly Iraqis– January 30th?s seismic political shift dramatically changed the debate and the media focus. The selection of Hajim al-Hassani (a Sunni Arab) as parliament speaker is another political knock for the terrorists.

Here are details on the April 2 and April 4 Abu Ghraib assaults (April 4, via AFP). I will quote at length since I can?t get a permalink:

Five people were wounded in a (suicide) bomb blast near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison just two days after a brazen attack on the notorious facility, as Iraqi politicians held more talks to try to agree on the shape of the new government. ..

?The US military released further details of Saturday’s sunset assault on Abu Ghraib, saying there were about 50 casualties among the rebel attackers in an ensuing battle with US-led forces.

It said about 40 to 60 gunmen took part in the two-hour attack which involved two car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms. About 44 US soldiers and 13 detainees were wounded.

“Apache helicopters and artillery fire began to engage the attackers. The terrorists were forced to withdraw after suffering an estimated 50 casualties,” it said in a statement?

The Abu Ghraib attacks follow this March 31 report by the New York Daily News on the overall decline in daily attacks in Iraq:

Insurgent attacks in Iraq have fallen dramatically since the Jan. 30 elections, and the number of U.S. deaths reported this month dropped to the lowest in a year.
But the news isn’t all good. Militants are focusing their attacks on Iraqi government and security officials as the new leaders of Iraq assume a greater role in their fragile nation.
Last fall, when the U.S. launched a major offensive against Fallujah, attacks ranged from 80 to 90 a day, said Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon. They’re now down to 40 to 45 a day in recent weeks, lower than the preelection average of 50 to 60 a day.
The latest U.S. casualty happened in western Iraq yesterday, when a Marine was killed by a land mine close to the Syrian border, the U.S. military said.
No other information was disclosed. The area, Al Qaim, is in Anbar Province, a region rife with insurgents who continue to attack U.S. and Iraqi military service members.
Elsewhere, gunmen in southern Iraq opened fire on more Shiite Muslim pilgrims making their way to a religious festival in Karbala, killing one person and fueling fears that insurgents may target the gathering that draws hundreds of thousands of people every year.
Attacks Monday on pilgrims planning to celebrate the al-Arbaeen festival killed four people, including two police officers guarding pilgrims.
In other developments, the Al Jazeera satellite channel aired a tape that purported to show three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq and possibly an American. The State Department confirmed a U.S. citizen was taken hostage with the three Romanians but gave no additional information.

NOTE: Daily attacks are a very rough metric. Many ?attacks? in Iraq consist of a single mortar round or RPG round fired in haste?pure harassment fire.

Assassination of intellectuals and technical experts remains a terrorist tool, and they are using it. I received a translated summary of an April 3 report from the Iraqi newspaper Asharq Al Awsat addressing the murder of doctors and professors. I cannot vouch for the statistics, but I know the terrorists are employing this tactic:

?Officials in both the Higher Education and Health Ministries reported to the Asharq Al Awsat that security deterioration and kidnapping have increased during the last two years. The results caused the deaths of dozens of doctors and professors. The security deterioration has forced more than 300 scientists, doctors, and professors to leave Iraq. The Health Ministry confirmed that 123 doctors were killed by unknown armed men. Subsequently other doctors left Iraq after receiving threats, thus the shortage of doctors has negatively influenced medical services in Iraq. On the other hand, a statistical report for professors mentioned that 46 college professors from differing scientific fields were also killed. (Author: Mahdi Al Amiri)

I repeat– I cannot vouch for these figures, nor the accuracy of the translation. It takes raw courage and stamina to defeat terrorists and tyrants.