Damaged and burnt out vehicles are seen along side the road following a double car bombing in the central Baghdad district of Karada. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday hailed the US leaders of the surge strategy on the eve of a military change of command in Iraq, but said the new commanders will face "a mission of transition" as American troop levels shrink. (AFP/Ali Yussef)WNU Editor: The following is a good summary from Strategy Page on the sectarian divide in Iraq.
Getting The Genie Back In The Bottle -- Strategy Page
September 15, 2008: The hard core of the Sunni terrorists is not going away quietly. Lacking foreign, or local, volunteers for suicide bombings, more Iraqi women and teenagers are being persuaded to die for the cause. While many of the most dangerous Sunni terrorists have been killed or captured, there are thousands of less active supporters who act as recruiters and spies. There is still a lot of hate and "fight to the end" attitudes in the Sunni Arab community. Several active suicide bomber cells are still active, and resistant to being shut down. But in Anbar province (western Iraq), the Iraqis are in charge of security, and most of the Sunni security militiamen have been merged into the police or paid off. In northern Iraq, mainly Diyala province, and the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are intermingled and still killing each other, the Sunni Arab terrorists are still a factor.
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