"Insurgency" Break-Up Continues

Following up on the previous piece about various insurgents groups looking for a way to give up, the UK GUardian has another piece:

The Iraqi resistance has peaked and is 'turning in on itself', according to recent intelligence reports from Baghdad received by Middle Eastern intelligence agencies.

The reports are the most optimistic for several months and reflect analysts' sense that recent elections in Iraq marked a 'quantum shift'. They will boost the government in the run-up to the expected general election in May.

[...]

Intelligence officials believe that ordinary Iraqis are increasingly turning against the militants.

Last week shopkeepers and residents killed three hooded men who began shooting at passers-by in Baghdad's southern Doura neighbourhood. Hours before the gunfight gunmen in the same quarter, which is ethnically mixed, killed a policeman as he drove to work, police said.

According to Iraqi authorities, townsmen in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad, killed seven of a group of militants thought to be planning a raid in the town earlier this month.

However violence in Iraq is still expected to continue for the long-term. The reports were unanimous that, even in a decade, some kind of continuing low-level insurgency is likely. They also agreed that criminal violence, the major threat to most Iraqis, was likely to remain at 'current very high levels'.

Read the whole thing.