Where’s al-Qaeda’s Tet Offensive?

Sept. 6: An Iraqi Sunni "volunteer" (former insurgents who have joined forces with US and Iraqi troops against Al-Qaeda in Iraq) holds a knife to the neck of a man in Hawra Haajab village who was detained for links to Al-Qaeda.David Furst – AFP/Getty Images

Last May, I warned of the possibility of a summer bloodbath in September, due to the widely advertised progress report by General Petraeus:

"We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus’s report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush’s controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements],"

So what ever happened to that "Tet Offensive"?

Dean Barnett and Jules Crittenden suggest the answers.

 Simply put, they look to have tried during the holy month of Ramadan and in wake of General Petraeus’ progress report to Congress, but have largely failed. With all the bad news going on for al-Qaeda, it sounds like they are so bogged down in a quagmire that launching a big "Tet Offensive" of their own has been taken off the table.