General: Iraq Insurgency Static in Size

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - In a sign of the Iraq insurgency's resilience, an American general said Friday that in his command area in north-central Iraq the level of violence is about where it stood prior to the January elections.

Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of coalition forces in four provinces that include the key cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and Samarra, said a segment of the insurgency that he called religious extremists has not grown in numbers but has recently "coalesced a little bit more" with a Kurdish insurgent group known as Ansar al-Sunna as well as with the al-Qaida wing in Iraq that is headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

So, the insurgents from other islamic fractions are begining to work together. Hmm.

Semper Fi