VOA常速英语2007年-Al-Qaida Leader Claims US Failing to Subdue Mil

Al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Monday said the United States was failing in its efforts to subdue 1 militants 2 in Iraq. And in a tape released on the internet, Osama bin 3 Laden's deputy told an unseen interviewer Britain's decision to hand over security responsibility for Basra province to Iraqi authorities is actually a sign that British forces are "fleeing." But a key U.S. defense 4 official says al-Qaida's ideology 5 carries the seeds of its own destruction among local residents of Iraq. VOA's Ravi Khanna looks at some the lessons the U.S. military says it learned in what was a violent place.

Coalition 6 efforts to combat al-Qaida in Iraq's Anbar province led to major battles in Fallujah and Ramadi.

But later, local Sunni residents later turned against al-Qaida insurgents 8. And by the middle of 2007, the commandant of the U.S. Marine 9 Corps 10 said local tribesmen in Sunni provinces were joining Iraqi government forces in record numbers.

A senior U.S. defense official says the lessons learned in the local struggle can help fight the terrorist network worldwide.

The U.S. official says al-Qaida has spread its ideology globally through its cult 11 of violence and simplicity 12 of message.

But Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Doran says one element of the network's ideology carries the seeds of its own destruction. "Al-Qaida makes it legitimate 13 for a Muslim individual to designate other Muslims as apostates 14 and to kill them on the basis of that designation. And this is an ideology has been spread globally. And that is what allows them to engage in such indiscriminate use of violence."

The deputy assistant secretary of defense says al-Qaida's practice of attacking Sunni Muslims is hurting the insurgent 7 troupe's image in Iraq. "This puts al-Qaida in a very difficult position because ideally, they would like ideologically 16 to present themselves as the representatives of the Iraqis as well as of the Islamic tradition."

U.S. success, he says, does not mean that al-Qaida in Iraq is less dangerous. But, he says, the Anbar experience has shown the way to combat ideological 15 support for terrorism. "When people are put face to face with the choice of this ideology and what it really means and the alternative, if given the capability 17 to counter it, they will choose the alternative. But for us to do it effectively that means we will have to really understand the specific local conditions in which people are living, what the choice is that they feel that they are facing and to craft policies that are responsive to those conditions."

Doran says the struggle against al-Qaida in Iraq will be won acre by acre [hectare by hectare] as is evident from the success of an ongoing 18 experiment in Anbar province. The overall fight against al-Qaida, he says, cannot be won by the military means only but also by working together with Muslim allies.