The Washington Post is reporting about a recent significant intelligence coup in an article entitled Diary of an Insurgent in Retreat.

On Nov. 3, U.S. soldiers raided a safe house of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq near the northern city of Balad. Not a single combatant was captured, but inside the house they found something valuable: a diary and will written in neat Arabic script.

“I am Abu Tariq, Emir of al-Layin and al-Mashadah Sector,” it began.

Over 16 pages, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader detailed the organization’s demise in his sector. He once had 600 men, but now his force was down to 20 or fewer, he wrote. They had lost weapons and allies. Abu Tariq focused his anger in particular on the Sunni fighters and tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the U.S.-backed Sunni Sahwa, or “Awakening,” forces.

This is a stark and telling admission of the demise of the al Qaeda organization in Iraq, and quite obviously was never intended to be studied by U.S. intelligence.  What was once a little less than Battalion strength in this emir’s area of operation is down to less than two squads.  In one sense, this demise was destiny for al Qaeda given the assumption that the U.S. wouldn’t lost hope or sight of the desired end.  Today I had the opportunity to debrief a Marine who has done two combat tours of Iraq, one in the Ramadi area of operations performing mounted patrols and transport interdiction.  One important fact involved knowledge of the typical behavior of the foreign terrorist coming from the Syrian border.

Indigenous Iraqis – insurgent or not – know their way around.  Like any typical citizen of a country, long pauses at intersections and wrong turns are not typical behavior.  One way used to ascertain probable cause for concern was wrong turns off of major thoroughfares.  Whether for directions, shelter, food, money and medical care, perhaps the most significant downfall of al Qaeda has been the utter dependence on indigenous Iraqis, and the violence and extremism of al Qaeda worked to their own disadvantage regarding their relations with the Sunnis in Anbar.  The very nature of the movement sealed its demise.

Even when the concerned local citizens didn’t perform kinetic operations against al Qaeda (but rather, left it to U.S. forces as in Operation Alljah in Fallujah), they turned al Qaeda over to U.S. forces.  When the Iraqis turned on al Qaeda, their fate was ensured even though time and persistence was required to effect this fate.  In this way, the Washington Post title is somewhat misleading, as have been some of my own articles and many others among military blogs.  Al Qaeda in Iraq cannot be characterized as insurgents per se.  They were always and are now foreign terrorists.

The al Qaeda emir also stated that:

“The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.

“The morale of the fighters went down and they wanted to be transferred to administrative positions rather than be fighters. There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organization.”

There is debate over whether the Multinational Force is doing enough to publicize the imminent defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq.  The Captain’s Journal has always been able to find the reports and weave together narratives that told the story as it occurred.  We discussed al Qaeda’s demise in Iraq: Al Qaeda’s Quagmire, and in Al Qaeda’s War on Iraq we discussed the death of another emir, Abu Osama al-Tunisi, and the subsequent capture of another internal al Qaeda memorandum, in which he stated that “he’s surrounded, communications have been cut, and he is desperate for help.”

The narrative is clear and available for the self-initiated analyst.  It isn’t clear what more the Multinational Force can do to communicate the facts.  While the fight is not finished, al Qaeda made Iraq the point of departure for their global plans, and their demise is on display for all to see.