thedrifter
01-24-06, 01:21 PM
A REBEL CRACK UP?
Time Magazine ^ | January 22, 2006 | TIM MCGIRK
How splits among insurgents in Iraq are erupting in violence and putting al-Qaeda on the defensive
Even by the standards of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the suicide bombing in Ramadi on Jan. 5 was stunning for its audacity. The bomber had blended into the ranks of Iraqi police recruits outside the Ramadi Glass and Ceramics Works before blowing up his explosive vest, loaded with ball bearings for maximum devastation. The blast killed two U.S. service members and more than 70 Iraqi police recruits--but it also turned out to be a deadly miscalculation by the jihadis and their leader, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. Most of the victims were local Sunnis, and they were joining the police force under the protection of tribal chieftains who, with the U.S. military's approval, are trying to impose order over their violent swath of Iraq. After the Jan. 5 blast, according to insurgents, tribal chiefs in Ramadi notified al-Qaeda that they were withdrawing protection in the city for the group's fighters. The jihadis responded by gunning down several prominent Sunni clerics and tribal leaders. Now al-Qaeda fighters who once swaggered through Ramadi are marked men. "It's war," says an Iraqi intelligence officer with contacts among the insurgents.
For months, U.S. officials in Iraq have tried to exploit growing differences over tactics and aims among factions of the insurgency, a push first detailed by TIME in December. Although reports of clashes between Iraqi nationalist groups and religious extremists linked to al-Qaeda remain difficult to quantify, there are signs that at least in some parts of Iraq, the tension is boiling over. Iraqi security sources with contacts in the insurgency told TIME that fighting has erupted in several cities that have long been bastions of the resistance, including Fallujah, Samarra, Latifiya and Mahmoudiya. In one recent incident, according to an Iraqi security source, insurgents wounded a Palestinian member of al-Qaeda, tracked him to a Baghdad hospital and then kidnapped him from his bed and handed him over to U.S. forces. Some Pentagon decision makers believe that the feuding within the insurgency may help U.S. and Iraqi troops quell the terrorist attacks that have made parts of the country ungovernable. "We're starting to see a little bit more every day," says Army Lieut. General Ray Odierno, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In places like Ramadi and Fallujah, Odierno says, "we've had some Iraqi insurgents' groups actually put up defenses to protect their people against al-Qaeda forces."
What's behind the rift? Even though some Iraqi insurgent groups have cooperated with jihadist fighters to battle U.S. troops, insurgent leaders say they have grown sick of al-Qaeda's killing innocent Iraqi Shi'ites, whom al-Zarqawi considers infidels. Cracks in al-Qaeda's alliance with the Iraqi groups became more pronounced after the Dec. 15 election. Al-Zarqawi saw the poll as a detour from his goal of turning Iraq into a base from which al-Qaeda could spread terrorism throughout the Middle East and Europe. Many Sunni resistance groups have a narrower focus: ridding Iraq of all occupation forces--U.S. troops and the pro-Iranian militias that slipped across the border. Sunni politicians managed to convince some key rebel groups that unless the Sunni minority voted, the elections would enhance the power of Kurdish and religious Shi'ite parties, some of which have ties to Iran. (Election results released last week showed that Sunni Arab parties will hold 55 seats in the new parliament, up from 17 in the previous one.) Abu Noor al-Iraqi, a leader of the Unified Leadership of Mujahedin, a new amalgam of four nationalist guerrilla outfits, tells TIME that "when al-Zarqawi's group threatened to attack the polling centers, we stood against them."
Since then, the fissures between the nationalists and al-Zarqawi have widened. U.S. political and military officers persuaded some Sunni tribal chiefs to send their youths into the security forces to ensure that Sunnis—not Shi'ite outsiders—would command their cities' police. But in recent meetings with various insurgent groups, says a nationalist field commander near Ramadi, al-Zarqawi's lieutenants made it clear that any Iraqi who joined the security forces was considered the enemy, thus drawing a battle line between the jihadis and their former comrades. In Latifiya, outside Baghdad, al-Zarqawi's fighters pressed Sunnis to desert a mixed Sunni-Shi'ite battalion under U.S. command. When the Sunnis refused, al-Qaeda shelled the camp with mortars. Local insurgents responded by hunting down al-Qaeda's chief for southern Baghdad and killing him and four Syrian fighters.
Al-Zarqawi's men, though, have shown few signs of backing down. In Latifiya last week, al-Qaeda fighters captured and murdered five members of the nationalist Islamic Army in Iraq and assassinated a Sunni colonel. After the backlash in Ramadi, al-Zarqawi's men supposedly retreated into the rocky western deserts but have continued to target local leaders. A senior security officer says jihadist fighters followed a Ramadi chieftain from the powerful Dulaimi tribe into Baghdad on Wednesday; handcuffed him, a nephew and a senior security officer for the western provinces; and executed each of them with a bullet through the head. In Samarra members of the Alboubaz tribe killed four foreign fighters and drove out 11 others after the assassination of a local police chief. After the tribesmen urged Sunni youths to join the local police, al-Zarqawi got his revenge. The instructors weren't going to make the same mistake they had made in Ramadi by allowing recruits to become an easy target for a suicide bomber, so they had them sign up in Baghdad. But al-Zarqawi's men were tipped off. Al-Qaeda ambushed the Sunnis' bus on the road and kidnapped the recruits. Their bodies have yet to be found.
Such clashes don't spell the end of the insurgency. U.S. officials believe that even if terrorist attacks subsided, many Sunni insurgents would continue attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces if they felt their interests were being shortchanged by a Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad. U.S. Senator Jack Reed, who was briefed on the insurgency during a visit to Iraq earlier this month, cautions against giddiness at reports of a backlash against al-Qaeda. "The center of mass of the insurgency is not the foreign terrorists," the Rhode Island Democrat told TIME. "They're a small band able to create spectacular attacks. But the real long-term danger is the Sunnis continuing to fight." The U.S. is still a long way from persuading them to stop.
With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington, With reporting by Hussain Hamdia/ Baghdad
Ellie
Time Magazine ^ | January 22, 2006 | TIM MCGIRK
How splits among insurgents in Iraq are erupting in violence and putting al-Qaeda on the defensive
Even by the standards of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the suicide bombing in Ramadi on Jan. 5 was stunning for its audacity. The bomber had blended into the ranks of Iraqi police recruits outside the Ramadi Glass and Ceramics Works before blowing up his explosive vest, loaded with ball bearings for maximum devastation. The blast killed two U.S. service members and more than 70 Iraqi police recruits--but it also turned out to be a deadly miscalculation by the jihadis and their leader, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. Most of the victims were local Sunnis, and they were joining the police force under the protection of tribal chieftains who, with the U.S. military's approval, are trying to impose order over their violent swath of Iraq. After the Jan. 5 blast, according to insurgents, tribal chiefs in Ramadi notified al-Qaeda that they were withdrawing protection in the city for the group's fighters. The jihadis responded by gunning down several prominent Sunni clerics and tribal leaders. Now al-Qaeda fighters who once swaggered through Ramadi are marked men. "It's war," says an Iraqi intelligence officer with contacts among the insurgents.
For months, U.S. officials in Iraq have tried to exploit growing differences over tactics and aims among factions of the insurgency, a push first detailed by TIME in December. Although reports of clashes between Iraqi nationalist groups and religious extremists linked to al-Qaeda remain difficult to quantify, there are signs that at least in some parts of Iraq, the tension is boiling over. Iraqi security sources with contacts in the insurgency told TIME that fighting has erupted in several cities that have long been bastions of the resistance, including Fallujah, Samarra, Latifiya and Mahmoudiya. In one recent incident, according to an Iraqi security source, insurgents wounded a Palestinian member of al-Qaeda, tracked him to a Baghdad hospital and then kidnapped him from his bed and handed him over to U.S. forces. Some Pentagon decision makers believe that the feuding within the insurgency may help U.S. and Iraqi troops quell the terrorist attacks that have made parts of the country ungovernable. "We're starting to see a little bit more every day," says Army Lieut. General Ray Odierno, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In places like Ramadi and Fallujah, Odierno says, "we've had some Iraqi insurgents' groups actually put up defenses to protect their people against al-Qaeda forces."
What's behind the rift? Even though some Iraqi insurgent groups have cooperated with jihadist fighters to battle U.S. troops, insurgent leaders say they have grown sick of al-Qaeda's killing innocent Iraqi Shi'ites, whom al-Zarqawi considers infidels. Cracks in al-Qaeda's alliance with the Iraqi groups became more pronounced after the Dec. 15 election. Al-Zarqawi saw the poll as a detour from his goal of turning Iraq into a base from which al-Qaeda could spread terrorism throughout the Middle East and Europe. Many Sunni resistance groups have a narrower focus: ridding Iraq of all occupation forces--U.S. troops and the pro-Iranian militias that slipped across the border. Sunni politicians managed to convince some key rebel groups that unless the Sunni minority voted, the elections would enhance the power of Kurdish and religious Shi'ite parties, some of which have ties to Iran. (Election results released last week showed that Sunni Arab parties will hold 55 seats in the new parliament, up from 17 in the previous one.) Abu Noor al-Iraqi, a leader of the Unified Leadership of Mujahedin, a new amalgam of four nationalist guerrilla outfits, tells TIME that "when al-Zarqawi's group threatened to attack the polling centers, we stood against them."
Since then, the fissures between the nationalists and al-Zarqawi have widened. U.S. political and military officers persuaded some Sunni tribal chiefs to send their youths into the security forces to ensure that Sunnis—not Shi'ite outsiders—would command their cities' police. But in recent meetings with various insurgent groups, says a nationalist field commander near Ramadi, al-Zarqawi's lieutenants made it clear that any Iraqi who joined the security forces was considered the enemy, thus drawing a battle line between the jihadis and their former comrades. In Latifiya, outside Baghdad, al-Zarqawi's fighters pressed Sunnis to desert a mixed Sunni-Shi'ite battalion under U.S. command. When the Sunnis refused, al-Qaeda shelled the camp with mortars. Local insurgents responded by hunting down al-Qaeda's chief for southern Baghdad and killing him and four Syrian fighters.
Al-Zarqawi's men, though, have shown few signs of backing down. In Latifiya last week, al-Qaeda fighters captured and murdered five members of the nationalist Islamic Army in Iraq and assassinated a Sunni colonel. After the backlash in Ramadi, al-Zarqawi's men supposedly retreated into the rocky western deserts but have continued to target local leaders. A senior security officer says jihadist fighters followed a Ramadi chieftain from the powerful Dulaimi tribe into Baghdad on Wednesday; handcuffed him, a nephew and a senior security officer for the western provinces; and executed each of them with a bullet through the head. In Samarra members of the Alboubaz tribe killed four foreign fighters and drove out 11 others after the assassination of a local police chief. After the tribesmen urged Sunni youths to join the local police, al-Zarqawi got his revenge. The instructors weren't going to make the same mistake they had made in Ramadi by allowing recruits to become an easy target for a suicide bomber, so they had them sign up in Baghdad. But al-Zarqawi's men were tipped off. Al-Qaeda ambushed the Sunnis' bus on the road and kidnapped the recruits. Their bodies have yet to be found.
Such clashes don't spell the end of the insurgency. U.S. officials believe that even if terrorist attacks subsided, many Sunni insurgents would continue attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces if they felt their interests were being shortchanged by a Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad. U.S. Senator Jack Reed, who was briefed on the insurgency during a visit to Iraq earlier this month, cautions against giddiness at reports of a backlash against al-Qaeda. "The center of mass of the insurgency is not the foreign terrorists," the Rhode Island Democrat told TIME. "They're a small band able to create spectacular attacks. But the real long-term danger is the Sunnis continuing to fight." The U.S. is still a long way from persuading them to stop.
With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington, With reporting by Hussain Hamdia/ Baghdad
Ellie