Iraq: "Insurgent" Tactics Change?

Interesting DEBKAfile report here on the recent Abu Ghraib attack and a follow-on.

Tactics change to exploit perceived weakness.

Interesting that DEBKAfile asserts about the composition of these "insurgents":

The attack-force was more likely to have been made up of the three elements which are the backbone of the Iraqi insurgent movement, ex-Baathists, al Qaeda and foreign Arab fighters.

Update: Belmont Club has an equally interesting post which cites to Austin Bay (for some reason his site makes my computer freeze):

Austin Bay describes an unusual and tactically nonsensical attack on Abu Ghraib. He believes the insurgents are "desperate for headlines ... With support dwindling day by day, the Sunni thugs are once more seeking 'freedom fighter' media status by 'playing the Abu Ghraib' card".

Abu Ghraib has now been attacked twice in a three-day period. Attacks occurred on April 2 and today, April 4. US forces took 44 casualties (most wounds were minor). US forces, however, are hard targets and the Abu Ghraib complex is heavily fortified. Wire reports conclude the terrorists took 50 casualties (out of an attacking force estimated at 60 gunmen). Their attack did trigger s “quick reaction force” (QRF) of Apache helicopters.

Rather than copy the whole thing, I will simply suggest you go take a read.

Update: And don't miss Greyhawk's What if They had a Tet Offensive and Nobody Came?

But once again the attackers are destroyed, repulsed, routed - their mighty truck bomb detonated short of it's target, their rockets and small arms fire largely ineffective, their mission a failure. But this time they even lack something else: their cheerleaders have melted away. There's apparently no one left in Iraq to report on what an amazingly sophisticated and coordinated assault was launched nationwide this past weekend. No one to declare the insurgents 'increasingly bold'.