First Signs of Daylight in Battle with Zarqawi in Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann

Only days after Al-Qaida announced the completion of its latest campaign of violence aimed at avenging alleged "massacres" of Sunni Muslims in Tel Afar by the U.S. and Iraqi government, there are growing indications that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida acolytes may be facing the most serious political and operational challenges they have encountered since they first joined the anti-coalition insurgency in mid-2003.  The deadly glut of suicide bombings that began on September 8 has undoubtedly caused destruction and chaos--but militants were neither able to undermine the anti-insurgent operation in Tel Afar nor deter Iraqi government efforts to formulate a constitution.  [English translations of Al-Qaida's various claims of responsibility for recent suicide bombing attacks are now posted online at Globalterroralert.com].  Instead, renewed apparent threats from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to massacre both Shiite and Sunni "collaborators" have been warily received by many Iraqi Sunnis, leading the respected Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars to issue a statement strongly admonishing Zarqawi:

"There is no religious basis allowing you to take your revenge on the innocent while ignoring the true criminals, nor are there rules stating that the innocent should bear the consequences for the acts of criminals� it is impossible for someone who claims to rely on the laws of Allah to make his decisions based on emotions and personal grudges. Such a dangerous statement only serves the most deadly wishes of our enemies�the desire to tear apart our country and to initiate a battle amongst the faithful... The best course of action for those who came to help eliminate the foreign occupation in our land is advocacy, not killing and annihilating the perspectives of others... we would like to remind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that religion can be used to advocate and we ask him to retract all the threats he has made because they damage the image of the jihad and take away from the success of the jihadi resistance project in Iraq, and it increases the bloodshed suffered by innocent Iraqis.�

The AMS statement is indeed significant and represents compelling evidence of a real break between mainstream Sunni Iraqis and fringe Salafist extremists, including many foreign fighters drawn from across the Middle East.  Within days, Al-Qaida angrily rushed to respond to the AMS criticism, first issuing a video statement from an Al-Qaida representative known as Abu Hamza al-Baghdadi.  Abu Hamza adamantly insisted that Zarqawi had been misquoted:

"The [Sunni] Muslims are our family and the children of Al-Qaida who have shed their blood in the land of Mesopotamia in order to defend the word of Allah and to defend the honor and holy places of the Muslims.  O� Sunni people, how is it possible for us to sacrifice your blood and bodies without sacrificing our own?  And yet, we are still being accused of spreading fear amongst you, intimidating you, and shedding your blood� this is neither accepted by the laws of Allah nor the human intellect� You should be sure that you have heard the entire speech before judging it... if you had listened to the entire speech, then you would have come to realize the complete truth and the correct judgment would now be clear to you... Anyone who attempts to distinguish between Iraqis and non-Iraqis with regards to jihad in the cause of Allah and helping to determine the destiny of the nation, then he would be mistaken.  The true foreigner is the one who runs away from the land of courage and rests with the oppressors who toss him their scraps and leave him to sip at the remnants of their drunken binges. Conversely, those whose blood is shed in the cause of their religion and nation, then he is a true Muslim Iraqi.  Where is the blood that you have shed for the honor of the Muslim women held in prisons?  May Allah be our witness, we say to you that the fingernail of any foreign mujahid who is fighting in Mesopotamia beyond Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi�may Allah protect him�is worth more than a country full of those who follow al-Sistani, al-Jaafari, al-Hakim, al-Sharastani, and Chalabi... anyone who forsakes his own country and comes to Mesopotamia in order to declare jihad in the cause of Allah and who remains steadfast in the Muslim homeland is superior to any Iraqi who runs away from battle, delivering himself into the hands of the oppressors and attempting to distinguish between the Iraqis and the non-Iraqis.�

A day later, Al-Qaida's Committee in Iraq issued an official statement in response to the AMS, largely echoing the protestations of Abu Hamza al-Baghdadi:

"We have received the statement published by the Association of Muslim Scholars regarding the audio recording of our commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... and it made us grow sad and concerned.  The statement published allegations that [Abu Musab] had issued a threat to Sunnis who participate in the election.  That allegation is false and the Association only took selected excerpts of the statement and construed them as a threat� We were amazed by the statement from the Association and their point of views� [especially] at a time when the Islamic nation and the people of Mesopotamia are anxiously awaiting fatwas, lectures, and statements urging the faithful to fight on, revealing the disbelief of those who refuse the message of Islam and trouble us with their tyranny, and to reveal their increasing crimes perpetrated on the Sunni people�including killing them, disgracing them, and stealing their possessions.  We ask the Association of Muslim Scholars�which serves a key role as the guide for the Islamic nation�where is your statement that aims at ridding us of the crusaders and urges the faithful to declare jihad and sacrifice their most precious possessions in the cause of Allah and our religion?  �As a result of your lectures, you have divided us from our brothers who were eager to be with us.  However, your lectures only made them stay away� In a time where endless condolences� are pouring forth for the evil dead people who dead on the bridge [near Al-Azamiyya], no one is weeping for those who were bombed and buried alive�such as our mothers and children in Al-Qaim�nor for those whose homes were demolished and honor taken away�such as our brothers and sisters in Tel Afar. Therefore, be patient, O� Sunni people�even if your clerics will not defend you, then your righteous sons will still avenge you, if Allah wills it... In regard to the term �brotherhood�, we do not understand the purpose of you using it in your statement.  Are you talking about brotherhood in faith� or nationality?  Are the Muslim brothers in Indonesia considered as your brethren or not?  If everyone is your brother, then who is considered an infidel in your eyes?"

Meanwhile, a new report on the insurgency in Iraq has been published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  The report concludes that foreign fighters comprise merely between 4% and 10% of the total number of insurgents, and that Saudi Arabian nationals are only a small portion of even that minority contingent.  The somewhat unusual results turned up by the CSIS report seem largely attributable to the principle sources cited in the report: Saudi intelligence memoranda. If the authors at CSIS--including the distinguished Anthony Cordesman--had done further field research, they would have discovered that Saudi authorities are vigorously attempting to suppress any information leaking out about Saudis who have gone to fight with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.  For instance, researchers at CSIS could have contacted the family of Walid al-Shamri, a Saudi Al-Qaida operative who blew himself up in a June 15, 2004 suicide bombing attack on a crowded Baghdad street that killed at least five foreign contractors, including two Britons, a Frenchmen, and and an American.  According to al-Shamri's family, they were specifically contacted by Saudi authorities and instructed not to discuss their son's fate with anyone else.  As if to underscore the errors in the latest CSIS report, Al-Qaida's Committee in Iraq has published the biography of yet another Saudi Arabian national killed during recent fighting in western Iraq: Abu al-Laith al-Najdi (a.k.a. Sulaiman al-Ghanim).  According to the biography, Abu al-Laith fought previously in Afghanistan and later was slain alongside most wanted Saudi Al-Qaida leader Abdallah al-Rashood during a U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Al-Qaim.

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