Suspected Sunni insurgents bombed and badly damaged a span over the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday — the third bridge attack in as many days in an apparent campaign against key transportation arteries.
I almost posted on it but didn't know if this was a new strategy or if it was because our security measures were shutting down options for hitting civilian targets. Because giving up hitting civilians where mass casualties and good pictures would make the news in favor of hitting concrete targets makes little sense unless the enemy had to switch.
From our point of view, it is even better than a defensive success. Weekly Standard reports that these attacks are defensive for al Qaeda, who are facing both an American-led offensive and Shia death squads eager to kill some Sunni jihadis. So while we suffer more casualties in this offensive, it is not a sign we lose. Indeed, our troops are more effective because they are on the offensive:
But their increasing effectiveness is demonstrated by the fact that al Qaeda is defending an ever-shrinking territorial position in the southern part of Baghdad and its outlying areas.
Not that the enemy has given up killing civilians, but they are forced to expend resources to create obstacles to our progress into their lairs in a defensive effort. And the obstacles block their routes in the opposite direction so this represents a serious concern for self-preservation, I think.
We are winning this war. Running would just be bizarre.
UPDATE: Strategypage has an explanation more in line with my first impression that it is getting tougher for the enemy to penetrate layers of defenses to hit soft Baghdad targets:
The terrorists have changed tactics, and so has the United States, and that says much about where the battle for Iraq is going. There are fewer bombs going off in Baghdad, so the bombers are trying to make each one count more. Thus, in the last week, three truck bombs took out bridges and overpasses, seeking to make life miserable for an many Iraqis as possible. This is because, despite all the dismal news from Iraq, what doesn't get reported is that most of the country is quiet, and there has been 4-5 percent growth in the overall economy for the past four years.
No reason it can't be both reasons.
