"We are in crisis. There is panic and fear"

According tothis article from the UK's Times Online, al-Qaeda is finally beginning to feel the pinch.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total collapse”.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

If these are authentic, it's a stunning testimony about the effectiveness of the ground-up strategy the US has been pursuing in recent months. But I have to admit some degree of skepticism about the documents: they are almost too good to be true. If, for example, you wanted your enemies to think you'd given up the fight, what better way than to "allow" such documents to fall into their hands? But this may be too paranoid of me.