Al-Qaeda in Iraq

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Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn
Participant in the Iraq War
Group members with Shosei Koda (Japanese civilian beheaded on November 3, 2004).
Active
Leaders	Abu Musab al-Zarqawi† Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abu Ayyub al-Masri)
Headquarters	Formerly Fallujah, Iraq
Area of operations	Iraq, limited in the broader Middle East
Strength	850[1] – 1,000+[2]
Part of	Al-Qaeda (since 2004), Mujahideen Shura Council (2006), Islamic State of Iraq (since 2006)
Originated as	Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
Opponents	Multinational force in Iraq, Iraq (Iraqi Security Forces, Kurdish and Shia militias, some of Iraqi Sunni militias), Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Israel, Egypt, United Nations
Battles/wars	Iraqi insurgency

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a term to describe a group which is playing an active role in the Iraqi insurgency. The group was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death in 2006; it is now believed to be led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir^[3] (aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri^[4]).

The group is a direct successor of al-Zarqawi's previous organization, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Beginning with its official statement declaring allegiance to the Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network in October 2004, the group identifies itself as Tanzim Qaidat Al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR) ("Organization of Jihad's Base in the Country of the Two Rivers").^[5]

[edit] Goals and umbrella organizations

Logo of Islamic State of Iraq

In a July 2005 letter to al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Zarqawi outlined a four-stage plan to expand the Iraq War, which included expelling U.S. forces from Iraq, establishing an Islamic authority (caliphate), spreading the conflict to Iraq's secular neighbors and engaging in battle with Israel.^[6] Consistent with their stated plan, the affiliated groups were linked to regional attacks outside Iraq, such as the Sharm al-Sheikh bombings in Egypt, and the Aqaba rocket attack.

In January 2006, AQI created an umbrella organization called Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) in an attempt to unify Sunni insurgents in Iraq. However, its efforts to recruit Iraqi Sunni nationalists and secular groups were undermined by its violent tactics against civilians and its extreme Islamic fundamentalist^[7] doctrine. Because of these impediments, the attempt was largely unsuccessful.^[8]

AQI used to claim its attacks under the MSC, until mid-October 2006 when Abu Ayyub al-Masri declared the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), another front which included the Shura Council factions. The AQI now claims its attacks under the ISI,^[9] and claims it's answering to the Emir and leader of the organization, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi. According to a study compiled by US intelligence agencies, the ISI have plans to seize power and turn the country into a Sunni Islamic state.^[10]

[edit] Strength and activity

AQI is among Iraq's most feared militant organisations^[11] and many experts regard it as the United States' most formidable enemy in Iraq.^[8] Others suggest that the threat posed by AQI is exaggerated;^[12] some scholars claim that a "heavy focus on al-Qaeda obscures a much more complicated situation on the ground."^[13]

According to a 2006 U.S. government report, this group is most clearly associated with foreign terrorist cells operating in Iraq and has specifically targeted international forces and Iraqi citizens. Most of AQI's operatives are not Iraqi, but instead come through a series of safe houses, the largest of which is on the Iraq-Syrian border. AQI's operations are predominately Iraq-based, but the United States Department of State alleges that the group maintains an extensive logistical network throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Iran, South Asia, and Europe.^[6] Over a three-month period in 2005, al-Zarqawi's (now deceased) affiliates were reportedly responsible for more than 1,700 attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces in the city of Mosul alone.^[6] Many of these were suicide attacks and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, typically using cars and other motor vehicles. (In March 2007 the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty analyzed al-Qaeda in Iraq attacks for that month. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had taken credit for 43 out of 439 attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias, and 17 out of 357 attacks on U.S. troops.)

Estimates for AQI numbers range from 850 – about three to five percent of the Sunni insurgency – to several thousand.^[1][14] In 2006 the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research estimated that AQI’s membership was in a range of "more than 1,000," putting AQI’s forces at less than one percent of the insurgency. In 2007 the State Department dropped its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number".

According to both the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and the Defense Intelligence Agency reports AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. However, the Congressional Research Service noted in its September 2007 report that attacks from al-Qaeda are less than two percent of the violence in Iraq and criticized the Bush administration’s statistics, noting that its false reporting of insurgency attacks as AQI attacks has increased since the "surge" operations began.^[15][16]

[edit] History

In 2004, AQI kidnapped Japanese citizen Shosei Koda and murdered him on October 30. In November, al-Zarqawi's network was the main target of the American Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah. On December 19, the group bombed a Shiite funeral procession in Najaf and main bus station in nearby Karbala, killing at least 60 in the Shiite holy cities. The group also reportedly took responsibility for a September 30 bombing directed at U.S. forces that killed 35 children and seven adults in Baghdad.^[17]

In 2005, AQI largely focused on executing high-profile and coordinated suicide attacks. The group claimed responsibility for numerous attacks which were primarily aimed at civilians, the Iraqi Government, and Iraqi Security Forces, among them for attacks against the voters during the Iraqi legislative election and the coordinated suicide attacks outside the Sheraton Ishtar and Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on October 24.^[6] On April 2, AQI fighters attacked the Abu Ghraib prison in a combined suicide and conventional attack. In July, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and execution of Ihab Al-Sherif, Egypt's envoy to Iraq.^[18][19] A July 2005 three-day series of suicide attacks, including Musayyib marketplace bombing, left at least 150 people dead and more than 260 wounded.^[20] Al-Zarqawi also claimed responsibility for the September 2005 massacre of mostly Shiite unemployed workers in Baghdad, which killed about 160 people and injured 570.^[21]

The attacks blamed on or claimed by al-Qaeda in Iraq kept increasing in 2006.^[9] In one of the incidents, two American soldiers (Thomas Lowell Tucker and Kristian Menchaca) were captured, tortured and beheaded by the ISI; in another, four Russian embassy officials were abducted and executed. Iraq's al-Qaeda and its umbrella groups were blamed for multiple attacks targeting Iraqi Shiites, some of which AQI claimed responsibility for. This year, several key members of the AQI were killed or captured by the American and allied forces, including al-Zarqawi killed on June 7, 2006, his spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, and the alleged "number two" deputy leader Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi.

Images of the ID cards of two missing U.S. soldiers, publicised by the ISI in early June 2007.

The high-profile attacks linked to the group continued through the early 2007, as the AQI-led Islamic State claimed responsibility for attacks such as the March 23 assassination attempt of Sunni Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Salam al-Zaubai, the April 12 Iraqi Parliament bombing, and the May capture and subsequent execution of three American soldiers. On May 3, 2007, the ISI leader al-Baghdadi was declared to have been killed in Baghdad, but his death was later denied by the group (later, al-Baghdadi was declared by the U.S. to be non-existent). There were also conflicting reports regarding al-Masri. As of mid-2007, the majority of the suicide bombings targeting civilians in Iraq were identified by the military and government sources as being the responsibility of al-Qaeda and its associated groups.

In late 2007, al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be severely crippled.^[22] There were three main reasons for this:

• Violent attacks and intimidation directed against Iraqi civilians have severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among the population.
• The Sunni militias that previously fought together with AQI, have begun to work together with the Iraqi government and the Coalition troops. This has severely isolated the group.
• The troop surge has supplied military planners with more manpower to go after Iraq's al-Qaeda leaders. In fact, dozens of high-level members have been captured or killed since the "surge" began.^[23]

[edit] Other activities

In May 2007 the U.S. forces announced the release of dozens of Iraqis who were tortured by AQI as a part of the group's intimidation campaign.^[24] The U.S. also claimed the group was at least of one of the forces behind the wave of the chlorine bombings in Iraq which affected hundreds of people through the series of crude chemical warfare attacks since the late 2006.^[25]According to a rival insurgent faction, the group is even demanding money in return for "protection", killing members of the families (especially wealthy ones) when not paid.^[26]

[edit] Inciting sectarian violence

Ayman al-Zawahiri praising Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after the death of the latter in June 2006

The attacks against civilians were often targeted at the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence. Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites^[27] while claiming responsibility for a series of September 2005 mosque bombings which killed at least 74 people.^[28] The same month, a statement claiming to be by AQI rejected as "fake" a letter allegedly written by al-Zawahiri, in which he appears to question the insurgents' tactics in attacking Shiites in Iraq.^[29] In a December 2007 video al-Zawahiri defended the Islamic State in Iraq, but distanced himself from the crimes against civilians committed by "hypocrites and traitors existing among the ranks".^[30]

U.S. and Iraqi officials accused AQI of trying to slide Iraq into full-scale civil war between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs with an orchestrated campaign of a civilian massacres and a number of highly provocative attacks against the high-profile religious targets.^[31] With attacks like the first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra, the deadly one-day series of bombings which killed at least 215 in the Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the second al-Askari bombing, they seem to have succeeded in provoking Shiite militias to unleash a wave of retaliatory attacks, resulting in a plague of death squad-style killings and spiraling further sectarian violence which escalated in 2006 and early 2007.^[8] This religious/ethnic violence between the Iraqis is sometimes called the "civil war in Iraq" by the observers.

[edit] Operations outside Iraq

AQI claimed an attempted chemical bomb plot in Amman, Jordan in April 2004.^[32] On December 3, 2004, AQI attempted to blow up an Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing, but failed to do so (in 2006, a Jordanian court sentenced Zarqawi (in absentia) and two of his associates to death for their involvement in the plot^[33]).

AQI also increased its operations outside Iraq by claiming credit for three attacks in 2005:^[6]

• Suicide bomb attacks against hotels which killed 60 people in Amman, Jordan, on November 9, 2005;^[34]
• Rocket attacks that narrowly missed the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ashland in Jordan and which also targeted Eilat in Israel;
• Firing of several Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon in December.

In addition, an AQI operative was arrested in Turkey in August 2005 while planning an operation to target Israeli cruise ships. In Lebanon, the Palestinian militant group Fatah al-Islam (which was defeated in the 2007 Lebanon conflict) was linked to AQI and led by Zarqawi's former companion who fought in Iraq.^[35] The AQI was also implicated in the 2006 German train bombing plot.

[edit] Conflicts with the Sunni nationalist groups

Main article: Islamic Army-al-Qaeda Conflict

The first reports of a split and even armed clashes between AQI and its allies, and the other insurgent Sunni groups date back to 2005.^[36][37]

In the summer of 2006, local Sunni tribes and insurgent groups, including the prominent Islamist nationalist group Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), began to speak of their dissatisfaction with al-Qaeda and its tactics,^[38] and openly criticized the foreign fighters for their deliberate targeting of civilian targets. In September 2006, 30 Anbar tribes formed their own local alliance called Anbar Salvation Council (ASC), directed specifically to counter al-Qaeda ("terrorist") forces in the province,^[39][40][41] openly siding with the government and the U.S. troops.^[42][43] Since then, AQI forces have retaliated against local Sunni tribesmen and other insurgent groups for negotiating a deal(s) with the U.S. forces and the Iraqi government to route out al-Qaeda-aligned militants. The extremist group supposedly played a vital role in the assassination of Harith Dhaher Khamis al-Dhari, a Sunni nationalist insurgent leader who headed the Anbar-based group 1920 Revolution Brigade.^[26]

On March 17, 2007, scores of people were killed when a truck bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in Fallujah where the local imam had criticized the al-Qaeda in Iraq.^[44] On April 17, 2007, the IAI spokesman accused AQI of killing at least 30 members of the Islamic Army and alleged that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, al-Baghdadi, had "broken the Islamic law".^[45] The same statement also alleged that AQI has also killed members of the Jaish al-Mujahideen and Ansar al-Sunna insurgent groups, and called on Osama bin Laden to personally intervene to rein in al-Qaeda in Iraq.^[26] On the same day, ISI released an audio tape in which al-Baghdadi attempted to soothe the tensions with other major Sunni insurgent groups.^[46] On May 1, 2007, the government stated that al-Masri was killed by the ASC fighters.^[4][47]

In June 2007, the growing hostility between the foreign-influenced religious extremists and other Sunni nationalists led to gun battles between the groups in Baghdad.^[48][49] Meanwhile, the U.S. military began arming moderate insurgent factions on the promise to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and not the Americans.^[50] The Islamic Army, however, reached a ceasefire with AQI on June 6, 2007, yet still refusing to sign on to the ISI.^[51] There were reports that the Hamas of Iraq insurgents were involved in assisting U.S. troops in their Diyala Governorate operations against AQI in August 2007. In September 2007, AQI claimed responsibility for the assassination of three people including the Sunni sheikh Adbul-Sattar Abu Risha (leader of the Anbar Awakening), sparking a revenge vow among 1,500 mourners. On September 25, 2007, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in the city of Baqubah, killing 28 people, including the leaders of Hamas of Iraq and 1920 Revolution Brigade, in the attack blamed on AQI that took place during a meeting at the mosque between tribal, police and guerilla leaders.^[52] A video, provided to CNN on February 19, 2008, shows an al-Qaeda in Iraq firing squad executing fellow Sunni extremists who were not loyal enough to the organization.^[53]

On May 8, 2008, CNN reported that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, had been arrested. These early reports however, were proven incorrect, as the man in custody was not al-Masri, who is still at large.

[edit] Known leaders and key members

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed 2006)
• Abu Ayyub al-Masri (possibly killed 2007, claimed to be alive)
• Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi (captured 2006)
• Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi (existence disputed)
• Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman (killed 2006)
• Abu Azzam (killed 2005)
• Khaled al-Mashhadani (captured 2007)
• Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri (killed 2007)^[54]
• Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Iraqi^[55][56]

[edit] See also

• Al-Qaeda
• Al Anbar Governorate
• Diyala Governorate
• Iraqi insurgency
• Islamist terrorism
• Operation Phantom Fury
• Terrorism in Iraq
• Islamic Army-al-Qaeda Conflict

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Al-Qaeda in Iraq, GlobalSecurity.org
• Country Reports on Terrorism, United States Department of State
• News about Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times, New York Times

[edit] Articles

• The Myth of AQI by Andrew Tilghman October 2007 Washington Monthly
• In motley array of Iraqi foes, why does U.S. spotlight al-Qaida? Associated Press on June 1, 2007
• Is al-Qaeda on the Run in Iraq? TIME on May 23, 2007
• Sunni Muslim sheiks join US in fighting Al Qaeda Christian Science Monitor on May 3, 2007
• Iraq: Al-Qaeda Tactics Lead To Splits Among Insurgents Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 17, 2007
• Al-Qaeda in Iraq May Not Be Threat Here; Intelligence Experts Say Group Is Busy On Its Home Front Washington Post, March 18, 2007

[edit] Videos

• Al-Qaeda in Iraq Al Jazeera English on May 20, 2007