Abu Azzam killed

U.S. Special Forces troops have killed Abu Azzam, Al Qaeda's number 2 man in Iraq, during a raid in Baghdad. Apparently, he was the finance guy.

Finance guys are always a bit easier to track down than the ops guys, because of the nature of their business. Ops guys can operate in isolated cells, and not talk to anyone but a couple of vendors and one finance guy who gives them cash. Information on ops guys can be very compartmentalized.

The finance guys, on the other hand, actually have to go fundraising. And everytime they go fundraising, the expose themselves. And all it takes is for Al Qaeda to accidentally murder the wrong guy's cousin, and someone calls a tip line, and the finance guy gets a 3am knock on his door.

The nice thing about these captures is that many times, you can make dozens of arrests, based on intelligence gained at the scene. This is another reason why the offensive is better than the defensive. The only intelligence you ever get on the defense is intel on what the enemy just did.

There are other things you can do, aside from the obvious things like raid the hard drive on the guy's computer. And Al Qaeda in Iraq must now make a lot of adjustments, and cut off a lot of contacts.

It's too bad that so little time has elapsed between Azzam's early monday demise and the time it hits the wires. It's always better to see news of a terror honcho's death about a week after it happens. When that happens, you know they've been able to do some major intelligence exploitation.

It's also a lot of fun if everyone thinks the honcho is still alive and yapping. That means everybody has to run for cover, and that in itself has a suppressive effect on terror operations.

And this is just pure speculation on my part, but what if Azzam is still alive and everyone thinks he's dead?

Heh.

Well, I guess that's just a possibility Al Qaeda will have to worry about.

And Syria, too.

Splash, out

Jason

P.S., the New York Times puts Lynndie England on the home page. The major U.S. victory in killing Azzam is nowhere to be found.