Is this sloppy reporting or is the media intentionally conflating the Insurgency with AQI?

The headline states al-Qaeda raids villages, but the text attributes the raid to Sunni insurgents. The fact is that it appears to be Sunni on Shiite violence. Also despite the violence raging in Iraq, the Bushies are trying to claim success.

Hard to know.

When Ramadi stopped being the proclaimed capital of the new caliphate (with the ISI doing the proclaiming), they set up shop in Baqubah. Baqubah is close to the area these villages appear to be in. We're not talking just a couple of insurgents. This was the closest thing they had to an army--they occupied Ramadi and set up a kind of government, and then moved it to Baqubah.

Some of the "insurgency" broke ranks and turned to the US for help--they were having their asses kicked in Baqubah. We're talking the 1920 Revolution Brigades and other *Baathist* insurgencies. The US sustained a number of casualties clearing Baqubah of the ISI folk, and the numbers of ISI dead and captured fell far short of expectations; the assumption was that many of them fled. As with Ramadi, there were several layers of "clearing"--the US did the initial clearing and heavy lifting, then the locals came through for the final and official clearing, allowing them (as the folks in Anbar are doing) to take credit. (Make no mistake: Whatever the Iraqi's actual role in securing Baqubah, they must be credited entirely or nearly so to their account.) This is Diyala province, the *other* place that * has mentioned where the locals having switched sides for their own purposes. I want to say this was June, but it may have been in July or even into early August that all this took place.

Since Baqubah was (mostly?) cleared, there have been a number of village-invasion attacks in this area. I don't think that all of them have been against Shi'ites; then again, I'm not going to say they haven't been. It's an "ethnically" mixed area--it used to be majority-Shi'ite hundreds of years ago, but Ottoman "tolerance" made them a minority. In any event, the presumption is that it's the remains of the ISI doing it--in some cases they get a village or two for a day and clean out the place, in other cases they simply "humiliate" their enemy by killing some civilians. A very old style of Arab warfare. The villages where the insurgents have managed to stay for a day or two usually tell the same kind of tale; if it's not ISI, it's their twin.

Now, I've been saying "ISI". AQI formally joined with some other minor Islamist insurgencies to form the ISI, "Islamic State in Iraq", IIRC. AQI's had non-Iraqi leadership (whatever their ranks are), which is a hindrance to them. By partnering, everybody came out ahead. The belief was that the ISI really relied on AQI for training--bomb-making, insurgency tactics, etc., so there's a tendency to consider the two names, ISI and AQI, to be near synonyms. In principle, they're not synonyms. In practice there are events that are probably AQI, in other cases events that might be non-AQI or involve the AQI but there's no way of knowing. I figure that since the ISI is lesser know editors and reporters go for synecdoche.

So Jichlan and the other village. AQI? ISI? Probably not the local Baathist groups. Possibly, but not likely, a spontaneously forming local anti-Shi'ite group. Plausibly some local tribe that has a grievance and wants to kill off some of the "other" while the killing's good, but the locals would have been able to say--you don't get revenge to settle the score without people knowing--having people know is the entire point.

Clear? Of course not.

GENERAL ELECTRIC --(donated 1.1 million to GW Bush for his 2000 election campaign)

Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).

Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.
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WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.
Westinghouse Electric Company, part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
whos #1 on the Board of Directors? None other than:
Frank Carlucci (of the Carlyle Group)

Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.
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DISNEY / ABC / CAP (donated 640 thousand to GW's 2000 campaign)
Television Holdings:
* ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households.
* ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America.
* ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E!
* Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.
Media Holdings:
* Miramax, Touchtone Pictures.
* Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover.
* 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers.
* Hyperion book publishers.
* Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).
Other Holdings:
* Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.
* All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.
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NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS (Rupert Murdoch) (donations see bottom note)
Television Holdings:
* Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households.
* Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%).
* The Golf Channel (33%).
MEDIA HOLDINGS:
* Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight.
* 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian.
* 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard.
* HarperCollins books.
OTHER HOLDINGS:
* Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League.
* Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines.
* Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).

*(Phillip Morris donated 2.9 million to George W Bush in 2000)*