A newly minted al-Qaeda leader in Iraq is now going to be newly buried, thanks to the new security efforts in Iraq:

Iraqi police has said that a local Al-Qaeda leader was killed early on Saturday. He was killed in a police raid on his home north of Baghdad.

…

Al-Dori was assigned to lead al-Qaida in Iraq operations in Samarra just one week ago, said the police.

It was unclear whether his predecessor was killed or captured.

Note some things about this incident. This man was only in power a week and he was taken in his safe house – which means the Iraqis are getting clear and immediate intelligence with regards to al-Qaeda. The Iraqi government claimed last month al-Qaeda was finished because the Iraqis had so penetrated their organization they were completely exposed to their intelligence assets:

The Interior Ministry announced Friday that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been successfully penetrated by means of a recently formed government security apparatus and is virtually an “open book,” confirming that the sectarian sedition in the country was at the end of its rope.

Clearly from this incident those grand claims are turning out to be true. There has been some commentary in the SurrenderMedia that al-Qaeda has changed course and realized it cannot massacre Iraqi Muslims and stay viable in Iraq. This incident also confirms my initial reaction to these reports:

Finally, the decimation of al-Qaeda has been due to a wave of intelligence tips from locals. I doubt those will dry up any time soon – so the warnings that go out to locals will be picked up by security forces. No one wants bombs going off in their neighborhoods, especially when the rest of the country is peacefully rebuilding a new future. I doubt this will do more than slightly delay the final defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

It is way too late foe al-Qaeda to make amends. They have killed and terrorized too many Iraqis, and they are not Iraqis but foreigners aligned with Iraqi criminals. There is no way for AQ to change its image in Iraq in a few weeks. Maybe decades – after they leave Iraq for a few years.