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  Al-Qaida Versus The Islamic Army: Insurgents in Iraq Turn on Each Other

Al-Qaida Versus The Islamic Army Insurgents in Iraq Turn on Each Other

By Bernhard Zand in Dubai

Part 2: A Common Enemy?

Of course, all Muslims fighting against the occupations are joined together by jihad, says Ilyan. But then he claims al-Qaida is supported by Tehran, since the Iranians eventually hope to control Iraq themselves. He says there’s a camp just on the other side of the border where both Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and al-Qaida troops receive training.

If true, it would be a very strange alliance, since al-Qaida professes a radical form of Sunni Islam that has very little use for the Shia Islam practiced in Iran. But Washington too has frequently claimed Iran is working with al-Qaida, as well as with Shiite militias. Will the prospect of a common enemy help create a Sunni-American front?

'The Insurgency Can Sense Victory'

Both the Americans and Sunni tribal leaders report how al-Qaida has successfully been driven from its strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi in the western Iraqi province Anbar. Insurgents that used to fight against US troops are now joining the Iraqi police by the hundreds. Under pressure, al-Qaida has been taking revenge with the kind of bloody attacks it used to only carry out against Shiites.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, is apparently betting on a broad Sunni majority opposed to al-Qaida. He has said he will take stock of the situation in September.

Terrorism expert Mustafa Alani from the Gulf Research Center in Dubai says the United States has indeed recognized the nationalist part of the insurgency as a force opposed to al-Qaida. But that, he predicts, won’t win the war.

“It’s too late for that," Alani says. "The insurgency as a whole can sense victory.” Although US troops repeatedly manage to establish “islands of relative security” in Iraq, the islands can never be linked together. “The insurgency at this point is like water," he says. "It might flow out of one pool, but then it just appears again in the next one.”

Seen from this perspective, al-Qaida is on the brink of victory in Iraq. Even if the terror network is defeated militarily, it has gained both prestige and young recruits -- just as it did in Afghanistan -- who will carry on the battle elsewhere. Iraq is still currently a “terror importer,” as Alani puts it: The inward flow of jihadists still outnumbers the amount of holy warriors going abroad.

One young Iraqi, who counts himself as part of the country’s “patriotic resistance,” says he often used to get reports about his people's fight against al-Qaida in Fallujah and Ramadi. But these days the telephone calls are from Baqubah in the east, Mahmudiyah to the south, or even Mosul in the north.

He estimates a third of young Sunnis support al-Qaida. That figure could shrink -- or not.

His father, who died a year ago, was one of the 70 men that led the 1968 putsch which put the Baath Party -- and Saddam Hussein -- into power.

For a while he negotiated with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad as a Baath Party representative, in a joint attempt with other nationalists to form a common front against al-Qaida’s influence in Iraq. It didn’t work.

“The actual cause of his death was a heart attack,” says the son. “But let’s be honest about it. He died because he was fatally demoralized.”

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