Selective Release

Clearly the big news in this story relates to the bombings, but an interesting B plot begins here:

Officials released two seized documents they said were handwritten by members of the group, in despair about defections and decreasing popular support.

The article then goes on to describe the contents of those documents as supporting that official interpretation and then notes that:

The military, citing security concerns, released only excerpts of the two documents.

Of course they are. It couldn't be that the documents were released primarily for domestic propaganda purposes but that making them effective propaganda required some editing, thus leading to the excerpts only policy.

I will say, though, that there does seem to be a ray of genuinely good news lurking about. The anti-"Awakening" forces appear to have decided that operations resulting in large numbers of Sunni Arab civilian casualties are counterproductive and have focused on attacking Awakening fighters and police instead. That should make continued combat somewhat less deadly, which counts as a small mercy.