The Growing Beating

clipped from powerlineblog.com Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local Al-Qaeda leader in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Saturday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions undermined the insurgency. The apparent assassination of the militant kingpin came as the US military announced that marines and Iraqi security forces had killed seven Al-Qaeda fighters during an assault on a truck bomb factory. Both incidents appeared to be linked to increased cooperation between Sunni factions, once sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, and the US military, which is encouraging nationalist factions to fight Al-Qaeda. Fallujah is the focus of a large-scale security operation in which Iraqi police and tribal levies, backed by US forces, are trying to drive out Al-Qaeda Islamist militants. Saturday's killing came after the Anbar Salvation Council, the armed wing of the province's tribal coalition, announced that it was sending plainclothes "secret police" to Baghdad to kill Al-Qaeda leaders.