Road Map to Morale

Army Sgt. Hector Hernandez of San Antonio chats with children while on patrol in Baghdad. He is part of the troop escalation President Bush ordered to help stabilize the capital.
Rick Loomis, LA Times.

I haven't done a post related to Iraq and the War on Terror for the past week or so, but there's a lot happening. A lot to be encouraged about. I'm just going to link to some of the positives I've been reading.

No Al Qaeda in Iraq?

One reason might be this:

The Weekly Standard links to the USA Today piece (among others), about 19,000 insurgents killed in the last 4 years (yes, I deem that good news).

Of course, if you don't think any of those insurgents are al-Qaeda, Reuters reports:

The U.S. military said on Wednesday it had discovered a list of some 500 al Qaeda militants recruited to fight in Iraq from a range of European, Middle East and north African countries.

Bill Roggio: Killed al Qaeda in Iraq operative sheds some light on foreign influence

Momentum:

Ray Robison's A Quiet Triumph May be Brewing

Bill Roggio Al Qaeda and the Taliban's Pakistani Insurgency

By way of Confederate Yankee:

• On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.
• Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi "civil war"? That seems to be fading.
• The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.
• Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse — despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.
• Military officials say U.S. troops have killed Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into the country. Not surprisingly, the pace of foreign fighters entering Iraq has been more than halved from the average of 60 to 80 a month.
• Last month, 1,200 Iraqis waited patiently in line in Iraq's searing heat to sign up to fight al-Qaida. They will join an estimated 30,000 volunteers in the past six months — a clear sign the tide has turned in the battle for average Iraqis' hearts and minds.
• Finally, and lest you think it's all death and destruction, there's this: Five million Iraqi children returned to school last week, largely without incident, following their summer vacations.

A reminder of the Michael Totten piece, Anbar Awakens Part II. If you haven't read it and spread it, you do yourself a disservice.

The Petraeus doctrine:
more resources more intelligently applied further forward

Mission Accomplished by Bartle Bull

Blogging Success:
The COIN is working Big Lizards
Flopping Aces on the reduction in troop and civilian deaths
al-Qaeda in Iraq desperate for help Oxford Medievalist


Others blogging and hat tips:
The Strata-Sphere

More to be added later....

Update: 2007/10/04 12:14 Evan Kohlmann of CounterTerrorism Blog Iraqi Insurgent Faction Breaks Silence, Accusing Al-Qaida of Fanaticism, Torture, and Murder