Terrorists aren't winning

Bad news generally drives out good news, and there's been quite a bit of bad news coming out of Iraq recently. In an effort to disrupt and discredit Iraq's first democratically elected government, terrorists have been stepping up their bloody attacks the past week.

At least 200 people have been killed, including a vicious suicide bomb that took 60 mostly Kurdish lives Wednesday in northern Iraq; it was the most deadly strike since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber killed 125 people in a town south of Baghdad.

Yet as bad as the news is for the good guys, it's even worse for the bad guys - a truth that is often obscured by the admittedly disheartening fatality and injury statistics. But those statistics are often worse for the terrorists, hundreds of whom are killed, injured or captured whenever they clash with coalition forces.

Moreover, terrorists have made no discernible progress so far in brewing a civil war between the nation's various ethnic, sectarian and religious factions that would take down the democratic government which, despite some serious internal squabbles of its own, seems to be building credibility in much of Iraq.

Further evidence that anti-government terrorists are beset with their own woes comes from a letter, recovered by U.S.-led forces, that apparently was addressed to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who's spearheading the attacks in Iraq. The missive indicates that, because of military setbacks and leadership incompetence, there is plenty of low morale, disillusionment and dissension within the ranks of the terrorists.

This doesn't mean, says the Pentagon, that the insurgents aren't still capable of launching destructive, deadly attacks - especially as long as they're able to recruit suicide bombers. But it does show that they're seriously hurting and frustrated that they're not achieving their goals.

The morale of radical Muslim and terrorist networks everywhere took another serious hit this week when Pakistani authorities arrested a close ally of Osama bin Laden's - Abu Farraj al-Libbi, head of Pakistan's al-Qaida operations. Al-Libbi, who orchestrated two assassination attempts against Pakistan president - and U.S. ally - Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had a $10 million bounty on his head.

Al-Libbi's capture surely ruined Osama bin Laden's day. It marked a huge success for anti-terrorist forces and a devastating blow against Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In comparing good news with bad, the news of those fighting for freedom and democracy is certainly better than for those fighting against it.