But with the less committed jihadis giving up and going home or surrendering, and new recruits not coming from the community or abroad, the remaining jihadis are true believers ready to fight to the death. These are going to take a toll on our troops:
The al Qaeda strategy of fleeing to more hospitable areas in northern Iraq (just below the closely guarded Kurdish region) backfired. This was taking the war to areas that had been relatively quiet, unvisited and pro-Saddam. The new hideouts were quickly found, and Iraqi and American forces went after them. This strategy has caused an increase in U.S. casualties, because the battles are with the hard core now. During the first half of January, there were about a hundred U.S. troops killed or wounded, nearly as many as for the entire month of December.
Many Sunni Arabs are surrendering and switching sides. But some proportion must be hunted down and killed. The trend of our casualties is down, but it will spike upward as we find those fanatics who must be killed. Or until the Iraqis can almost fully replace our combat troops.
