American military field leaders, in particular, Lt. General Michael Flynn, in late spring 2004, were 'strategically surprised' at the capabilities, scale of operations, and quality of leadership of the subject. Western media suggested that foreign fighters continued to flock to AQI. A secret U.S. Marine Corps intelligence report of August 2006 wrote that Iraq's Sunni minority had been increasingly abandoned by their religious and political leaders who had fled or been assassinated, was "embroiled in a daily fight for survival", feared "pogroms" by the Shiite majority, and was increasingly dependent on Al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Syrian dominance across Baghdad.