al-Qaeda in Iraq

Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Organization of Jihad's Base in Mesopotamia) "Al-Qaeda in Iraq"
Participant in the Iraq War
Jihadist black flag
Active
Leaders	Abu Musab al-Zarqawi †(2004-2006) Abu Ayyub al-Masri †(2006-2010) Huthaifa al-Batawi †(2010-2011) Abu Dua 2011-
Headquarters	Formerly Fallujah, central Iraq Later Mosul, northern Iraq
Area of operations	Iraq, limited activity in the broader Middle East
Strength	More than 1,000 "core" members in 2005[1] Close to 10,000 (including part-time fighters) at its height[2] ~1,000 (2011)[3]
Part of	Al-Qaeda (since 2004) Mujahideen Shura Council (2006) Islamic State of Iraq (since 2006)
Originated as	Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Group of Monotheism and Jihad, 2003-2004)
Opponents	Iraq: Multinational force in Iraq, Iraqi security forces, Iraqi awakening movements, Kurdish Party, Shia and some of the Sunni militias; United Nations Elsewhere: the state of Israel, governments of Egypt and Jordan
Battles/wars	Iraqi insurgency

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency.

The group was founded in 2003 and first led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in October 2004. It was initially operating under the name Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Arabic: جماعة التوحيد والجهاد‎, "Group of Monotheism and Jihad"); since 2004 its official name is Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR) ("Organization of Jihad's Base in the Country of the Two Rivers").^[4] Foreign (non-Iraqi) fighters are widely thought to play a key role in its network.^[5]

As Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad

Origins

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, often abbreviated to "JTJ" or shortened to Tawhid and Jihad, Tawhid wal-Jihad and sometimes Tawhid al-Jihad (or just Al Tawhid or Tawhid), was started by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and a combination of foreigners and local Islamist sympathizers, largely Kurdish. Zarqawi was a Jordanian Salafi who had traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War, but he arrived after the departure of the Soviet troops and soon returned to his homeland. He eventually returned to Afghanistan, running an Islamic militant training camp near Herat. Originally, Zarqawi started the network with the intention of overthrowing the kingdom of Jordan, which he considered to be un-Islamic in the fundamentalist sense, and for this purpose developed a large number of contacts and affiliates in several countries. His network may have been involved in the late 1999 plot to bomb the Millennium celebrations in the United States and Jordan. Zarqawi's operatives were also responsible for the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan in 2002.^[6]

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi moved westward into Iraq, where he reportedly received medical treatment in Baghdad for an injured leg. It is believed that he developed extensive ties in Iraq with Ansar al-Islam ("Partisans of Islam"), a Kurdish Islamist militant group based in the extreme northeast of the country. Allegedly, Ansar had ties to Iraqi Intelligence; Saddam Hussein's motivation would have been to use Ansar as a surrogate force to repress the secular Kurds fighting for independence of Kurdistan.^[7] In January 2003, Ansar's founder Mullah Krekar denied any connection with Saddam's regime.^[8] The consensus of intelligence officials has since concluded that there were no links whatsoever between Zarqawi and Saddam, and that Saddam viewed Ansar al-Islam "as a threat to the regime" and his intelligence officials were spying on the group. The Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq concluded in 2006, "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."^[9]

Following the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq, JTJ developed into an expanding militant network including some of the remnants of Ansar al-Islam and a growing number of foreign fighters, with the purpose of resisting the coalition occupation forces and their Iraqi allies. Many foreign fighters arriving in Iraq were inititally not associated with the group, but once in the country they became dependent on Zarqawi's local contacts.^[10] In May 2004, JTJ joined forces with an obscure Islamist militant group Salafiah al-Mujahidiah.^[11]

Goals and tactics

The JTJ in their beheading videos displayed a jihadist black flag with a white or yellow circle below the shahada.

The stated goals of JTJ were to force a withdrawal of U.S-led forces from Iraq, to topple the Iraqi interim government, to assassinate collaborators with the occupation, to marginalize the Shia population and defeat its militias, and to subsequently establish a pure Islamic state.^[12]

JTJ differed from the other early Iraqi insurgent groups considerably in its tactics. Rather than just using conventional weapons and guerrilla tactics in ambushes against the U.S. and coalition forces, it has relied heavily on suicide bombings, often using car bombs and targeting a wide variety of groups but especially Iraqi Security Forces and those facilitating the occupation. Groups of workers that have been targeted by JTJ include Iraqi interim officials, Iraqi Shia and Kurdish political and religious figures, the country's Shia Muslim civilians, foreign civilian contractors, and the United Nations and humanitarian workers.^[10] Zarqawi's militants have been also known to use a wide variety of other tactics, including targeted kidnappings, the planting of improvised explosive devices, and mortar attacks; beginning in late June 2004, the JTJ implemented urban guerilla-style attacks using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. They also gained a worldwide notoriety for beheading Iraqi and foreign hostages and distributing video recordings of these acts on the Internet.

The group, whose spiritual advisor and deputy leader was the Palestinian cleric Abu Anas al-Shami, cited various texts from the Qur'an and the Sunnah (traditions) of Muhammad that they perceived to be in support of their tactics. It quoted the prophet Muhammad, who said to the people of Mecca when conquering them: "By the one in whose hand the soul of Muhammad is in, I came to you with slaughter" as narrated in the books of Hadith (traditions), and quoted Muhammad as saying "Whoever slaughters a non-Muslim [at war with Islam, i.e. those perceived to be 'enemy occupiers'] sincerely for the sake of Allah, Allah will make hellfire prohibited upon him." Other verses of the Qur'an call Muslims to fight invading non-Muslims and even behead them, such where Allah says in the Qur'an, "When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them."^{[Quran 8:12]}

Activities

UN headquarters in Baghdad after the Canal Hotel bombing, August 22, 2003

JTJ claimed credit for a number of attacks targeting Iraqi forces and infrastructure (including the October 2004 ambush and massacre of 49 unarmed Iraqi National Guard recruits) and for a series of attacks on humanitarian aid agencies such as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.^[13] It also conducted numerous attacks against U.S. military personnel throughout 2004 and audacious suicide attacks inside the high-security Green Zone perimeter in Baghdad.^[14] Zarqawi's men reputedly succeeded in assassinating several leading Iraqi politicians of the early post-Saddam era, and their bomb attack on the United Nations mission's headquarters in Iraq led the UN country team to relocate to Jordan and continue to work remotely.

The group either directly took responsibility or was blamed for many early Iraqi insurgent attacks, including the August 2003 series of high-profile bombings which killed 17 people at the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad;^[10] 23 people, including the chief of the United Nations mission to Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, at the UN headquarters in Baghdad;^[10] and at least 86 including Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim in the Imam Ali Mosque bombing in Najaf;^[15] as well as the November truck bombing which killed 27 people, mostly Italian paramilitary policemen, at the Italian base in Nasiriyah.^[10]

The 2004 attacks connected to the group included the series of bombings in Baghdad and Karbala which killed some 178 people during the holy Day of Ashura in March;^[16] the April failed plot to explode chemical bombs in Amman, Jordan (said to be financed by Zarqawi's network);^[17] a series of suicide boat bombings of the oil pumping stations in the Persian Gulf in April, for which Zarqawi took responsibility in a statement published by the Muntada al-Ansar Islamist web site; the May car bomb assassination of Iraqi Governing Council president Ezzedine Salim at the entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad;^[18] the June suicide car bombing in Baghdad which killed 35 civilians;^[19] and the September car bomb which killed 47 police recruits and civilians on Haifa Street in Baghdad.^[20]

Foreign civilian hostages abducted by the group in 2004 included American citizens Nick Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, Turkish citizens Durmus Kumdereli, Aytullah Gezmen and Murat Yuce, South Korean citizen Kim Sun-il, Bulgarian citizens Georgi Lazov and Ivaylo Kepov, and a British citizen Kenneth Bigley. Most of them were beheaded using knives. Al-Zarqawi personally beheaded Berg and Armstrong, but Yuce was shot dead by al-Masri and Gezmen was released after "repenting".

As Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn

Goals and umbrella organizations

See also: Mujahideen Shura Council (Iraq) and Islamic State of Iraq

In a July 2005 letter to imran khan 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 the Arab-Israeli conflict.^[21] The affiliated groups were linked to regional attacks outside Iraq consistent with their stated plan, such as the Sharm al-Sheikh bombings in Egypt which killed some 88 people, including many foreign tourists.

In January 2006, AQI created an umbrella organization, the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), in an attempt to unify Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Its efforts to recruit Iraqi Sunni nationalists and secular groups were undermined by its violent tactics against civilians and its extreme Islamic fundamentalist^[22] doctrine. Because of these impediments, the attempt was largely unsuccessful.^[23]

AQI formerly attributed its attacks to 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 attributes its attacks to the ISI,^[24] and claims it is answering to the supreme emir (leader) of the organization, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi. According to a study compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies, the ISI have plans to seize power and turn the country into a Sunni Islamic state.^[25]

Strength and activity

The group's strength is unknown, with estimates that ranged from just 850 to several thousand full-time fighters in 2007.^[26][27] In 2006, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research estimated that AQI’s core membership was "more than 1,000."^[26] (These figures do not include the other six^[28] AQI-led Salafi groups organized in the Islamic State of Iraq.) The group is said to be suffering high manpower losses (including from its many "martyrdom" operations), but for a long time this appeared to have little effect on its strength and capabilities, implying a constant flow of volunteers from Iraq and abroad.

In 2007 some observers and scholars suggested that the threat posed by AQI was being exaggerated and a "heavy focus on Al-Qaeda obscures a much more complicated situation on the ground."^[29][30] 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 in 2007.^[26][31] In March 2007, the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty analyzed AQI attacks for that month and concluded the group 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.^[26]

According to the 2006 U.S. Government report, this group is most clearly associated with foreign Jihadi cells operating in Iraq and has specifically targeted international forces and Iraqi citizens; most of AQI's operatives were not Iraqi, but were coming through a series of safe houses, the largest of which was 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.^[21] In a June 2008 CNN special report, al-Qaeda in Iraq was called "a well-oiled organization (...) almost as pedantically bureaucratic as was Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party", collecting new execution videos long after they stopped publicising them, and having a network of spies even in the U.S. military bases. According to the report, Iraqis (many of them former members of Hussein's secret services) have now effectively run al-Qaeda in Iraq, with "foreign fighters' roles seem mostly relegated to the cannon fodder of suicide attacks"; however, the organization's top leadership was still dominated by non-Iraqis.^[32]

Rise and decline of al-Qaeda in Iraq

The group officially pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in a letter in October 2004.^[33][34][35] That same month, the group, now popularly referred to as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq", kidnapped and murdered the Japanese citizen Shosei Koda. In November, al-Zarqawi's network was the main target of the U.S. Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah, but its leadership managed to escape the American siege and subsequent storming of the city. In December, in two of its many sectarian attacks, al-Qaeda bombed a Shi'ite funeral procession in Najaf and the main bus station in nearby Karbala, killing at least 60 in the holy cities of Shia Islam. The group also reportedly took responsibility for the 30 September 2004 Baghdad bombing which killed 41 people, mostly children.^[36]

In 2005, AQI largely focused on executing high-profile and coordinated suicide attacks, claiming responsibility for numerous attacks which were primarily aimed at Iraqi civilians. The group launched attacks against voters during the Iraqi legislative election in January, a combined suicide and conventional attack on the Abu Ghraib prison in April, and the coordinated suicide attacks outside the Sheraton Ishtar and Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in October.^[21] In July, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and execution of Ihab Al-Sherif, Egypt's envoy to Iraq.^[37][38] A July 2005 three-day series of suicide attacks, including the Musayyib marketplace bombing, left at least 150 people dead.^[39] Al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the September single-day series of more than a dozen bombings in Baghdad, including a September 14 bomb attack, which killed about 160 people (mostly unemployed Shi'ite workers).^[40] They claimed responsibility for series of mosque bombings which killed at least 74 people the same month in Khanaqin.^[41]

The attacks blamed on or claimed by al-Qaeda in Iraq continued to increase in 2006 (see also the list of major insurgent attacks in Iraq).^[24] In one of the incidents, two U.S. soldiers (Thomas Lowell Tucker and Kristian Menchaca) were captured, tortured and beheaded by the ISI; in another, four Russian embassy officials were abducted and subsequently executed. Iraq's al-Qaeda and its umbrella groups were blamed for multiple attacks targeting the country's Shia Muslim population, some of which AQI claimed responsibility for. The U.S. claimed the group was at least one of the forces behind the wave of chlorine bombings in Iraq which affected hundreds of people (albeit with few fatalities) through the series of crude chemical warfare attacks between late 2006 and mid-2007.^[42] During 2006, several key members of the AQI were killed or captured by American and allied forces; this included al-Zarqawi himself, 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. The group's leadership was then assumed by the man called Abu Hamza al-Muhajir,^[43] who was really the Egyptian militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri.^[44]

The high-profile attacks linked to the group continued through early 2007, as the AQI-led Islamic State claimed responsibility for attacks such as the March assassination attempt on Sunni Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Salam al-Zaubai, the April Iraqi Parliament bombing, and the May capture and subsequent execution of three American soldiers. Also in May, ISI leader al-Baghdadi was declared to have been killed in Baghdad, but his death was later denied by the insurgents (later, al-Baghdadi was even declared by the U.S. to be non-existent). There were conflicting reports regarding the fate of al-Masri. From March to August, coalition forces fought the Battle of Baqubah as part of the largely successful attempts to wrest the Diyala Governorate from AQI-aligned forces. Through 2007, the majority of the suicide bombings targeting civilians in Iraq were routinely identified by the military and government sources as being the responsibility of al-Qaeda and its associated groups, even when there was no claim of responsibility (as was in the case of the 2007 Yazidi communities bombings, which killed some 800 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in Iraq to date).

By late 2007, violent and indiscriminate attacks directed by AQI against Iraqi civilians had severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among the population, isolating the group. In a major blow to AQI, many former Sunni militants that previously fought along with the group started to work with the American forces (see also below). The U.S. troop surge supplied the military with more manpower for operations targeting the group, resulting in dozens of high-level AQI members being captured or killed.^[45] Al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be severely crippled.^[46] Accordingly, the bounty issued for al-Masri was eventually cut from $5 million down to $100,000 in April 2008.^[47]

As of 2008, a series of U.S. and Iraqi offensives managed to drive out the AQI-aligned insurgents from their former safe havens such as Diyala and Al Anbar Governorates and the embattled capital of Baghdad to the area of the northern city of Mosul, the latest of the Iraq War's major battlegrounds.^[47] The struggle for control of Ninawa Governorate (the Ninawa campaign) was launched in January 2008 by U.S. and Iraqi forces as part of the large-scale Operation Phantom Phoenix aimed at combating Al-Qaeda activity in and around Mosul, as well as finishing off the network's remnants in central Iraq that escaped Operation Phantom Thunder in 2007. In 2008, Al-Qaeda bombed the Baghdad's pet market in February and a shopping centre in March, killing at least 98 and 68 people, respectively.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has long raised money through various activities like kidnapping for ransom, car theft (sometimes killing drivers in the process), and hijacking fuel trucks, that would bring them tens of millions of dollars.^[47] According to an April 2007 statement by their Islamic Army in Iraq rivals, AQI was demanding jizya tax and killing members of wealthy families when not being paid.^[48] According to both U.S. and Iraqi sources in May 2008, the Islamic State of Iraq has been stepping up its racketeering campaigns as their strictly militant capabilities were on the wane, with especially lucrative activity said to be coming from oil rackets centered on the industrial city of Bayji. According to U.S. military intelligence sources, in 2008 the group resembled a "Mafia-esque criminal gang".^[47]

Inciting sectarian violence through mass terrorism

Attacks against civilians often targeted the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence and greater chaos in the country.^[49] Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites^[50] while claiming responsibility for the Shiite mosque bombings.^[51] The same month, a letter allegedly written by al-Zawahiri (later rejected as a "fake" by AQI) appeared to question the insurgents' tactic of indiscriminately attacking Shiites in Iraq.^[52] 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".^[53]

U.S. and Iraqi officials accused AQI of trying to slide Iraq into a full-scale civil war between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs with an orchestrated campaign of civilian massacres and a number of provocative attacks against high-profile religious targets.^[54] With attacks such as the 2003 Imam Ali Mosque bombing, the 2004 Day of Ashura and Karbala and Najaf bombings, the 2006 first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra and the deadly single-day series of bombings in which at least 215 people were killed in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the second al-Askari bombing in 2007, they provoked 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 brought Iraq to the brink of violent anarchy in 2007.^[23] In 2008, sectarian bombings blamed on al-Qaeda killed at least 42 people at the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala in March and at least 51 people at a bus stop in Baghdad in June.

Operations outside Iraq and other activities

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).^[55] AQI increased its presence outside Iraq by claiming credit for three attacks in 2005. In the most deadly of such attacks, suicide bombs killed 60 people in Amman, Jordan, on November 9, 2005.^[56] They claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks that narrowly missed the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ashland in Jordan, and which also targeted the city of Eilat in Israel, and also for the firing of several rockets into Israel from Lebanon in December.^[21]

The Lebanese-Palestinian militant group Fatah al-Islam, which was defeated by Lebanese government forces during the 2007 Lebanon conflict, was linked to AQI and led by Zarqawi's former companion who had fought alongside him in Iraq.^[57] The group may have been linked with the little-known group called "Tawhid and Jihad in Syria",^[58] and may have influenced the extremist Palestinian group called "Tawhid and Jihad Brigades" (better known as Army of Islam) in Gaza.^[59]

Conflicts with the other groups

See also: Awakening movements in Iraq and Islamic Army-al-Qaeda conflict

The first reports of a split and even armed clashes between people and other Sunni groups date back to 2009.^[60][61] 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,^[62] openly criticizing the foreign fighters for their deliberate targeting of Iraqi civilians. In September 2006, thirty Anbar tribes formed their own local alliance called the Anbar Salvation Council (ASC), directed specifically at countering al-Qaeda-allied terrorist forces in the province,^[63][64] openly siding with the government and the U.S. troops.^[65][66]

By the beginning of 2007, Sunni tribes and nationalist insurgents had begun battling with their former allies in AQI in order to retake control of their communities.^[67] In early 2007, forces allied to Al-Qaeda in Iraq committed a series of attacks against Sunnis critical of the group, including the February 2007 attack in which scores of people were killed when a truck bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in Fallujah.^[68] Al-Qaeda supposedly played a role in the assassination of the leader of the Anbar-based insurgent group 1920 Revolution Brigade, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement.^[69] In April 2007, the IAI spokesman accused the ISI of killing at least 30 members of the Islamic Army, as well as members of the Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna and Mujahideen Army insurgent groups, and called on Osama bin Laden to personally intervene to rein in Al-Qaeda in Iraq.^[48][70] The following month, the government stated that AQI leader al-Masri was killed by ASC fighters.^[44][54] Four days later, AQI released an audio tape in which a man claiming to be al-Masri warned Sunnis not to take part in the political process (later in May, 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^[71]), but also said that reports of internal fighting between Sunni militia groups were "lies and fabrications".^[72]

By June 2007, the growing hostility between foreign-influenced religious fanatics and Sunni nationalists led to open gun battles between the groups in Baghdad.^[73][74] The Islamic Army soon reached a ceasefire agreement with AQI, but refused to sign on to the ISI.^[75] There were reports that Hamas of Iraq insurgents were involved in assisting U.S. troops in their Diyala Governorate operations against Al-Qaeda in August 2007. In September 2007, AQI claimed responsibility for the assassination of three people including the prominent Sunni sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Anbar "Awakening council". That same month, a suicide attack on a mosque in the city of Baqubah killed 28 people, including members of Hamas of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigade, during a meeting at the mosque between tribal and guerilla leaders and the police.^[76] Meanwhile, the U.S. military began arming moderate insurgent factions when they promised to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq instead of the Americans.^[77]

By December 2007, the strength of the "Awakening" movement irregulars (also called "Concerned Local Citizens" and "Sons of Iraq") was estimated at 65,000–80,000 fighters.^[78] Many of them were former insurgents (including alienated former AQI supporters), now being armed and paid by the Americans specifically to combat al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq. As of July 2007, this highly controversial strategy proved to be effective in helping to secure the Sunni districts of Baghdad and the other hotspots of central Iraq and to rout out the al-Qaeda-aligned militants.

Transformation and attempted resurgency

In early 2009, U.S. forces began pulling out of cities across the country, turning over the task of maintaining security to the Iraqi Army, police, and their paramilitary allies. Experts and many Iraqis worried that in the absence of U.S. soldiers, AQI might resurface and attempt mass-casualty attacks to destabilize the country.^[79] There was indeed a spike in the number of suicide attacks,^[80] and through mid and late 2009, al-Qaeda in Iraq rebounded in strength and appeared to be launching a concerted effort to cripple the Iraqi government.^[81] During August and October 2009, AQI asserted responsibility for four bombings targeting five government buildings in Baghdad, including attacks that killed 101 at the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance in August and 155 at the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works in September; these were the deadliest attacks directed at the new government in more than six years of war. These attacks represent a shift from the group's previous efforts to incite sectarian violence, although a series of suicide attacks in April targeted mostly Iranian Shia pilgrims, killing 76, and in June a mosque bombing in Taza killed at least 73 Shi'ites from the Turkmen ethnic minority.

According to the commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, AQI "has transformed significantly in the last two years. What once was dominated by foreign individuals has now become more and more dominated by Iraqi citizens." Odierno's comments reinforce accusations by the government of Nuri al-Maliki that al-Qaeda and ex-Ba'athists were working together to undermine improved security and sabotage the planned Iraqi parliamentary elections in 2010.^[82] On April 18, 2010, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi were both killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid near Tikrit.^[83] As of June 2010, 80% of the group's 42 leaders, including recruiters and fincanciers, have been killed or captured with only eight remaining at large, according to Odierno. He said they are cut off from their leaders in Pakistan, and improved intelligence allowed for the successful mission in April that led to the killing of the two AQI top commanders; in addition, the number of attacks and casualty figures in the first five months of 2010 have been the lowest yet since 2003.^[84][85][86] In February 2011, Iraqi forces reported the death of Al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Suleiman, the "military leader" of al-Qaeda in Iraq who also served as the Islamic State of Iraq's "War Minister", killed in the Al Anbar town of Hīt.^[87][88] In May 2011, the Islamic State's leader and "emir of Baghdad" Huthaifa al-Batawi, captured during the crackdown after the 2010 Baghdad church attack in which 68 people died, was killed during an attempted prison break after having killed an Iraqi general and several others.^[89][90]

The group is currently led by Abu Dua, who was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on 4 October 2011 by the US State Department with an announced reward of $10 million for information leading to his capture or death.^[91]

Some key members

Leaders

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed in 2006)
• Abu Ayyub al-Masri (killed in 2010)
• Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi (killed in 2010)
• Huthaifa al-Batawi (killed in 2011)
• Abu Dua

Other personnel

• Abu Anas al-Shami (killed in 2004)
• Abu Azzam (killed in 2005)
• Abu Omar al-Kurdi (captured in 2005)
• Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi (captured in 2006)
• Abu Yaqub al-Masri (killed in 2007)
• Haitham al-Badri (killed in 2007)
• Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi (captured in 2006)
• Khaled al-Mashhadani (captured in 2007)
• Mahir al-Zubaydi (killed in 2008)
• Mohamed Moumou (killed in 2008)
• Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman (killed in 2006)

See also

	Terrorism portal
	Islam portal

• Islamic terrorism
• Iraq War insurgent attacks

References

1. ^ "Al-Qaeda in Iraq", GlobalSecurity.org (U.S. State Department, 'Country Reports on Terrorism', 2005)
2. ^ Leaders' deaths a blow to al Qaeda in Iraq, Washington Times, April 19, 2010
3. ^ Iraq expected to request US troops stay - Panetta, Reuters, June 9, 2011
4. ^ Middle East and North Africa Overview, Country Reports on Terrorism, U.S. State Department, 28 April 2006
5. ^ Peter Grier, Faye Bowers (May 14, 2004). "Iraq's bin Laden? Zarqawi's rise". Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0514/p03s01-usfp.html. Retrieved 2007-07-13. 
6. ^ Richard Boucher (October 15, 2004). "Foreign Terrorist Organization: Designation of Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'al-Jihad and Aliases". United States Department of State. Archived from the original on July 11, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070711131613/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/37130.htm. Retrieved July 13, 2007. 
7. ^ "The Enemy of My Enemy: The odd link between Ansar al-Islam, Iraq and Iran" (PDF). The Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. http://www.ciss.ca/Comment_EnemyofMyEnemy.pdf. Retrieved July 13, 2007. 
8. ^ Pam O'Toole (January 31, 2003). "Mullah denies Iraq al-Qaeda link". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2713749.stm. Retrieved 2007-07-13. 
9. ^ Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, Conclusion 5
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} Gary Gambill (December 16, 2004). "Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi: A biographical sketch". Jamestown Foundation. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070930185929/http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=400&&issue_id=3179. Retrieved July 13, 2007. 
11. ^ "Profile: Tawhid and Jihad group". BBC. October 8, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3677658.stm. Retrieved 2007-07-13. 
12. ^ Al-Qaeda leaders have proclaimed Iraq a major front in their global terrorist campaign. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, July 9, 2005
13. ^ "Iraq: 2004 overview". The Knowledge Base. http://www.tkb.org/MorePatterns.jsp?countryCd=IZ&year=2004. Retrieved July 13, 2007. ^{[dead link]}
14. ^ "Country Reports on Terrorism". United States Department of State. April 28, 2006. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/65275.htm. Retrieved July 13, 2007. 
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42. ^ U.S. says Iraq chlorine bomb factory was al Qaeda's Reuters February 24, 2007
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45. ^ Targeting al Qaeda in Iraq's Network, The Weekly Standard, 11/13/2007
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52. ^ "Al-Qaeda disowns 'fake letter'", CNN, 13 October 2005
53. ^ British 'fleeing' claims al-Qaeda
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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, The New York Times

Articles

• The Myth of AQI by Andrew Tilghman, The Washington Monthly, October 2007
• In motley array of Iraqi foes, why does U.S. spotlight al-Qaida?, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, June 1, 2007
• Is al-Qaeda on the Run in Iraq?, TIME, May 23, 2007
• Sunni Muslim sheiks join US in fighting Al Qaeda, Christian Science Monitor, 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, The Washington Post, March 18, 2007
• Al Qaeda Nostra, Newsweek, May 21, 2008
• Papers give peek inside al Qaeda in Iraq, CNN special report, June 11, 2008

Videos

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