NEARLY FOUR MONTHS since the Baghdad Security Plan was announced, the Sunni population in the provinces continues to turn on al Qaeda in Iraq, and attempts to weaken support for the group inside Baghdad are showing early signs of success. Al Qaeda in Iraq, for its part, has focused its attacks largely in the provinces, and zeroed in on the Iraqi Security Forces, the anti-al Qaeda Sunni community, and Iraq’s bridges.

The most significant development inside Baghdad over the past week occurred in the Sunni-dominated western neighborhood of Amiriyah, where a group of local residents and Sunni insurgent groups (largely fighters from the 1920s Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army in Iraq) banded together to eject al Qaeda from the neighborhood.