SUNNI & SHIITE VBIED AND CAR BOMB NETWORK IN IRAQ General: U.S. captures car bomb ringleadersThe Rusafa group's financing, movement of vehicles andtransport of explosives all had trademarks of being partof the al-Qaeda network, Caldwell said, without providingfurther details.Caldwell cautioned that car bomb rings such as theRusafa operation often regroup quickly and launch moreattacks."It doesn't mean we have completely stopped them,"Caldwell said. "These organizations will regeneratethemselves.
But each time they do, they should be lesseffective, less capable."It is difficult to break up an entire network at once, saidToby Dodge, an Iraqi expert with the London-basedInternational Institute for Strategic Studies.
Car bomb rings are often a collaboration between Islamicradicals and specially trained former members of SaddamHussein's government, he said.Units are assigned different tasks, such as smugglingjihadists into Iraq, building bombs or choosing targets,Dodge said. "It's a fluid, multifaceted operation," he said."The way these networks were created, you could hit oneaspect of it but it's so flexible, it's hard to get the wholething at once.
Recent history has demonstrated that there are few religious-ideological barriers in the world of international terrorism. The secular Ba'athist regime in Syria works closely with Hizballah, as a secular Ba'athist regime in Iraq has developed ties to al-Qaeda.It would be a mistake to assume that Islamist international terror groups are driven primarily by the religious associations with radical Sunni or radical Shiite Islam. These groups have their own geopolitical interests in bridging this great Islamic divide - particularly their antipathy for the United States and its allies.
"However, the arrests may show that U.S. forces aremaking progress in information gathering, said AndrewKrepinevich, an analyst at the Washington-based Centerfor Strategic and Budgetary Assessments."This is significant to the extent that it indicates ourintelligence about the enemy is improving. This war isdriven by intelligence, not firepower," Krepinevich said.
