Al-Qaeda controls western Iraq: US intelligence report

US forces can neither crush the insurgency in western Iraq nor counter the rising popularity of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in the area, media reported, citing a secret Marine Corps intelligence report. The five-page report, written in August, focuses on the largely Sunni Iraqi province of Al-Anbar, according to the Washington Post.

The secret report was written by Marine Colonel Peter Devlin, a senior military intelligence officer with the Marine Expeditionary Force in the region. According to the Post, it did not appear to have been shared with Iraq's military.

Iraq's Sunni population is "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fears "pogroms" by the Shiite majority, and is increasingly dependent on Al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance in Baghdad, the report reads.

Barring an additional 15,000 to 20,000 US troops deployed to the region in addition to billions of dollars in aid, "there is nothing" US troops "can do to influence" the insurgency, the report reads.

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