Captured by Soldiers of the 101st Airborne in what military officials called "a routine patrol-type operation" on Nov. 3, the 16-page diary of Abu Tariq, a local AQI "emir" south of Balad, describes an organization on the ropes -- with fighters abandoning the al Qaeda cause, vehicles and weapons stashes destroyed by coalition forces, and some AQI members taking up cause with local "awakening" groups who've sided with U.S. forces.

The manpower of the five battalions of AQI fighters in Tariq's area have been decimated by coalition inroads, the document shows. Describing the 4th "al-Ahawal" Battalion of AQI fighters in the region, Tariq writes: "Most of its members are scoundrels, sectarians and non-believers and the worst of them was [name redacted by military officials] and he was the first one to desert his battalion and ran away to Syria then later on came back from Syria and joined the traitors..."

In one battalion, the number of fighters dropped from 200 to ten. In another, the insurgent rolls plunged from 300 to 16, "then two; one of whom was arrested and the second one was injured," Tariq wrote.

"You can see [from the diary] the al Qaeda organization in this area has been hurt badly over the course of the year," said Air Force Col. Donald Bacon, chief of special operations and intelligence information for Multi-National Force - Iraq, during a recent call with military bloggers.

"We don't want to extrapolate that this is about all of al Qaeda ... we don't want to over-promise that all of al Qaeda is this way," Bacon added quickly.

One of the main factors U.S. military officials cite for the rapid decline of AQI membership and the drop in violent operations against coalition forces is the establishment of so-called "concerned local citizens" groups, now called "sons of Iraq" or "awakening" groups. These teams of local fighters with allegiance to tribal elders and regional sheiks man checkpoints throughout many key cities in Iraq, keeping an eye out for potential suicide bombers, IED emplacers and foreign fighter infiltration.

Tariq's diary lashes out at the awakening groups, blaming them for the sharp decline in his ability to terrorist attacks against Iraqis and coalition forces. But his writing also lends weight to critics who say the awakening groups are merely terrorists under a new banner.

"There were almost 600 fighters in sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees (sic) under the influence of the so-called Islamic Army and other known believer groups," Tariq wrote. "Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters ... it has gotten worse ever since, and as a result of that the number of fighters has dropped to 20 or less."

Tariq goes on to list vehicle locations, weapons cache inventories and the names of loyal and "traitor" al Qaeda fighters in his area. Most of the names have been redacted by military officials from the translated transcript of the diary.

Bacon was unsure why Tariq -- who has not yet been killed or captured -- left such a detailed list of names and equipment, but he speculated that the AQI leader wanted some record of his operations in the event he met his demise.

"In this case, I think he was wanting to -- if something happened to him, if he got killed -- he wanted to have a clear record of 'someone shafted me on this truck, didn't pay me right -- they still owe al Qaeda -- this other guy over here was a traitor, this guy over here was a friend,' " Bacon explained. "I think he just wanted to leave a record for the al Qaeda public record of who was a debtor and who was a creditor."

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