“…in November [3] 2007 American soldiers raided a house in northern Iraq and found the diary of an al-Qaeda leader in the area, a man who called himself Abu Tariq, ‘the emir of al-Layin and al Mashadah sectors.’ The diary lamented that his force, which had once been six hundred strong, was down to twenty men. Abu Tariq blamed local Sunni tribes for ‘changing course’ and bringing about his group’s present travails.”
– Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Pages 270-271