IRAQ: Insurgents in my Inbox

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Journalists in Iraq are accustomed to waking up to a host of daily e-mail updates from the U.S. military, rounding up the results of recent operations, number of insurgent fighters killed or captured, hidden weapons caches discover, etc.

A couple months ago, a group of insurgents launched its own series of e-mails in an attempt to portray the ongoing conflict from its perspective -- and as an apparently bid at a bit of psychological warfare.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group made up of former Baathist military officers, began sending out what it calls its ‘Monthly Harvest.’

The updates from the group, which has alternately collaborated and feuded with Al Qaeda, include claims of the numbers of American troops killed or wounded in insurgent attacks, military vehicles destroyed, and rockets and mortars launched at U.S. bases.

For a view of the conflict through the words of insurgents, here’s a link to the translation of the latest report: Download islamic_army_statement.rtf

-- Ashraf Khalil in Baghdad