Al Qaeda knows, and admits, that they're losing the war. They do think they've had some success on one front, though:

The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them. This policy dragged us to the type of operations that are attracted to the media, and we go to the streets from time to time for more possible noisy operations which follow the same direction.

This direction has large positive effects; however, being preoccupied with it alone delays more important operations such as taking control of some areas, preserving it and assuming power in Baghdad (for example, taking control of a university, a hospital, or a Sunni religious site).

Don't expect to read about this aspect in the New York Times.

Well when you put this story together with the decision to suspend the deployment of a combat brigade to Baghdad yesterday, you'd think there'd be a story here...

Meanwhile, over in the CNN newsroom:

Nah... Its just another Bush failure!!! (TM)

If those incompetents Cheney and Rumsfeld weren't running the War in Iraq, we would've won 3 years ago. Right? Right?

Isn't it time for another rousing chorus of "Bush Lied, People Died!" on air yet???

Go easy on them, Joe.

Sometimes the lighting and makeup isn't perfect, a very stressful annoyance which, to them, is easily comparable to that endured in a combat zone. They figure if it's possible for them to get their message out amidst all the hardships they have to endure ( I hear the coffee from the cafeteria sucks), why can't our armed forces subdue the most socio-politically screwed up region in the world - one overrun by fanatical muderers, yet - in the near effortless manner they've expected from a Tom Clancy screenplay.

Then there's the traumatizing ordeal of the "embedded" reporter who, having received the appropriate update along with his Continental breakfast, is perfectly satisfied that the war he "covers" so "closely" is hell. Why with having to continually stop to remove the pits form his orange juice, how can he meet his deadline? (Oh! Did Hemingway have it so rough?)

Apparently, too many reporters think to "cover" something literally means to conceal it.

Al Qaeda has realized they simply don't have the resources to take and hold ground in the face of coalition action. And that includes the Iraqis. So they have a new strategy; scare off the non-Iraqi forces so they only have to deal with Iraqi troops.

This based on the proposition that Iraqi forces must be easier to handle than the Americans etc. So, for Al Qaeda, it becomes a matter of chasing off the coalition before the Iraqis have the capability of handling the insurgencies in Iraq on their own.