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| Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn | |
|---|---|
| File:Shosei Koda.jpgTanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn members with Shosei Koda (Japanese civilian beheaded on November 3, 2004). The banner contains the words from right to left on the bottom: "Qaidat" (Priniciple/Foundation), "Tanzim" (Organization/Organizing), and "Jihad" (The Holy Struggle) | |
| Leaders | Abu Musab al-Zarqawi† Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abu Ayyub al-Masri) |
| Dates of operation | 2004-present |
| Headquarters | Formerly Fallujah |
| Active regions | Iraq, Jordan, Middle East |
| Part of | Al-Qaeda (since 2004), Mujahideen Shura Council (2006), Islamic State of Iraq (since 2006) |
| 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 and wars | Iraqi insurgency |
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a radical Salafi militant group in the Sunni Iraqi insurgency which was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death. It is now believed to be led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri).
AQI is often regarded as being the United States' most formidable enemy in Iraq, as well the largest killer of Iraqi civilians. Critics of this say the threat posed by AQI is overblown, or possibly a diversion.
This group is most clearly associated with foreign terrorist cells operating in Iraq and has specifically targeted international forces and Iraqi citizens. AQI's operations are predominately Iraq-based, but the group maintains an extensive logistical network throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Iran, South Asia, and Europe. Although AQI's top leaders are usually foreigners, it is estimated that Iraqis make up 90 percent of AQI's of at least 1,000 to several thousand fighters.
The group is a direct successor of the Zaraqwi's previous organization known as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Since 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 in Bilad al-Rafidayn (Organization of Jihad's Base in the Country of the Two Rivers).
Name
AQI is also variably known as: Al-Qaida in Iraq, Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in Iraq, Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Al-Qaeda of Jihad in Iraq, Al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization in the Land of The Two Rivers, Al-Zarqawi Network, and Tanzeem Qaidat al Jihad/Bilad al Raafidaini.
Goals
In a July 2005 letter to al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQI late leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi outlined a four-stage plan to expand the Iraq war to include 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.
Consistent with their stated plan, the affiliated groups were linked to regional atacks, such as the Sharm al-Sheikh bombings in Egypt, and the Aqaba rocket attack on the USS Ashland.
Umbrella organizations
In an attempt to unify Sunni Sunni inurgents in Iraq, in January 2006, AQI created the umbrella organization of Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC). However, its efforts to recruit Iraqi Sunni nationalist and secular groups were undermined by its violent tactics against civilians and the fundamentalist doctrine, and the attempt was largely unsuccessful.
AQI claimed its attacks under the MSC until mid-October, when Abu Ayyub al-Masri declared the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), under which AQI now claims its attacks.
History
In 2004 AQI kidnapped and murdered Shosei Koda of Japan on October 30, and on December 19 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 possibly killed 35 children and seven adults in the Bahdad bombing targeting U.S. troops handing out candy to the Iraqis on September 30, but the responsibility claim remains unclear. From Novemeber to December the main AQI forces took part in the defence of Fallujah from the large U.S. and Iraqi offensive.
In 2005 AQI largely focused on conducting multiple high-profile, coordinated suicide attacks. AQI claimed numerous attacks primarily aimed against civilians, the Iraqi Government, and Iraqi Security Forces, such as the coordinated 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. On April 2 AQI fighters attacked Abu Ghraib prison in a combined suicide and conventional attack. In July, al-Qaeda kidnapped and executed Ihab al-Sherif, Egyptian ambassador to Iraq,, and for a three-day series of suicide attacks left at least 150 people dead and more than 260 wounded, including Musayyib marketplace bombing. In September, Zarqawi claimed responsbility for the September 14 massacre of 160 people, mostly unemployed constrution workers in Baghdad; 570 were injured.
AQI attack claims, which the group now releases under the auspices of the first IMC and then the ISI, increased in 2006. In one of the incidents, two American soldiers (Thomas Lowell Tucker and Kristian Menchaca) were captured, tortured and beheaded by the IMC members; in another, four Russian citiziens were kidnapped and executed. AQI and its umbrella groups were blamed for multiple mass-casualty attacks targeting Iraqi Shiites and claimed responsibility for some of them. In many cases it's unknown if the attack was the work of AQI itself or rather its allied groups. Also this year, several key members of AQI were killed or captured, including the leader and founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his spiritual advisor Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, and the alleged "number two" deputy leader Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi.
This trend continued in 2007, as the AQI-led ISI claimed responsibility for such attacks as the March 23 assassination attempt of Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zaubai, April 12 Iraqi Parliament bombing and May capture and execution of three American soldiers. On May 27 2007 U.S. forces announced they freed 42 Iraqi citizens kidnapped and tortured by AQI as part of the groups intimidation campaign against Iraqi civilians. On May 3, 2007 the ISI leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was announced to having been killed in Baghdad.
Activities
The group is one of the most active among the Iraqi inurgent groups, especially in its current stronghold in Anbar province. In Mosul alone, Zarqawi affiliates are reportedly responsible for more than 1,700 attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces over a three-month period in 2005. Many of these attacks were suicide and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks using cars and other motor vehicles driven by foreign fighters or locally recruited Iraqis trained by foreign fighters.
Inciting sectarian violence
The attacks against civilians often targeted Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence. The group leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared all-out war on Shiites while claiming responsibility for a series of a mosque bombings. U.S. and Iraqi officials accused AQI of trying to tip Iraq into full-scale civil war between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs with a campaign of spectacular massacres that have killed thousands.
From the February 2006 Al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra through the series of massive attacks against civilians like the series of bombings in the Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City on November 23 2006 which killed at least 215 people and injured 257 others, AQI succeeded to provoke the Shiite militias to unleash a wave of retaliatory kidnappings and killings. This vicious religious violence is sometimes called "civil war in Iraq".
Operations outside Iraq
AQI also increased its external operations in 2005 by claiming credit for three attacks:
- suicide bomber attacks against hotels in Amman, Jordan, on November 9 2005;
- a rocket attack that narrowly missed U.S. Navy ship in Eilat, Israel;
- the firing of several Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon in December.
On December 3, 2004 AQI attempted to blow up a Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing, but failed - Zarqawi (in absentia) and two of his associates were sentenced to death for this plot by a Jordanian court in 2006. In addition, an AQI operative was arrested in Turkey in August while planning an operation targeting Israeli cruise ships. In Lebanon, Palestinian militant group Fatah al-Islam fighting in the 2007 Lebanon conflict is connected to AQI and led by Zarqawi's former companion who fought in Iraq.
Conflicts with the other Sunni groups
The first reports of the split and even armed clashes between AQI and its allies and the other anti-government Sunni groups date back to 2005. In the summer of 2006 local Sunni tribes and insurgents groups, including the leading rebel group known as Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), began to speak of their dissatisfaction of the millitant group and its tactics, and openly criticized foreign fighters for their campaign of bombings against civilian targets, especially Sunni.
Since them, AQI forces have retaliated against local Sunni tribesmen and other insurgent groups for negotiating with the U.S. forces and the Iraqi government on joining forces to route out Al-Qaeda millitants, including the assassination of Harith al-Dari, a major Sunni insurgent leader who headed the 1920 Revolution Brigades. As the situation between AQI and the local Sunni tribesmen in Anbar (many of them former Qaeda allies) has continued to worsen, in September 2006 30 Anbar tribes have formed their own local alliance directed specifically to counter Al-Qaeda forces, called Anbar Salvation Council (ASC), siding with the government and U.S. forces in the province.
On April 17 2007 the IAI spokesman accused AQI of killing 30 members of Islamic Army and said al-Baghdadi had broken Islamic law. On the same day the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq Abu Omar al-Baghdadi released an audio tape in which he tried to soothe down tensions with other major Sunni insurgent groups. On May 1 2007 the government said AQI leader Abu Ayyub Al Masri was killed by the ASC fighters. Four days later, AQI released an audio tape in which Al Masri warned Sunnis not to join the political process. He also went on to claim that reports of internal fighting between his group and other Sunni insurgent groups were "lies and fabrications".
In June 2007, the growing hostility between foreign-influenced AQI extremists and Sunni nationalists led to a gunbattles between the insurgents groups also in Baghdad. Same month, after an al-Qaeda-linked suicide bomber struck a safehouse of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, US military began arming moderate insurgents on the promise to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and not the Americans. In the meantime, however, Islamic Army reached a ceasefire with AQI on June 6 2007, saying "The most important is that it's our common duty to fight the Americans." Neverthless, IAI never adopted al-Qaeda's extremist views and refused to sign on to ISI.
Leaders
- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed 2006)
- Abu Ayyub al-Masri (status uncertain)
- Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi (captured 2006)
- Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (killed 2007)
- Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman (killed 2006)
- Abu Azzam (killed 2005)
- Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri (killed 2007)
- Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Iraqi
See also
References
External links
- Al-Qaeda in Iraq GlobalSecurity
- 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
Articles
- 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 sheikhs 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 on March 18, 2007
