Iraq's Evildoers Declare War on Each Other, Then Ceasefire - What Gives?

By James Gordon Meek

I write today in the New York Daily News about the growing friction between Iraq's Sunni insurgents and foreign Arabs from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQII). Tensions boiled over last week on the streets of one Baghdad neighborhood, where the bang-bang -- for once -- wasn't aimed at American troopers. Note that counterterrorism officials quoted in the story speculated that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq might lead to Sunnis ramping up their efforts to oust Al Qaeda's foreign fighters from their country.

While the running firefights last week were one of the biggest open clashes between locals and outsiders ostensibly on the same side opposing the American occupation, AQII and the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) have traded shots in past years -- both verbally and literally. But the latest dustup triggered a blistering declaration of war by an IAI spokesman, who posed a question to his "brothers" in Al Qaeda: "Would it not be better to target the Americans rather than the [IAI] group?"

The IAI statement on Tuesday also hammered AQII for attacking Iraqi Sunnis for years, including unarmed worshippers in mosques. As CT Blog contributor Evan Kohlmann has written, the IAI has even formed a political party that's a "threat" to Al Qaeda's nihilistic aims. Yesterday, however, the IAI declared a ceasefire with AQII.

"This is what chaos and anarchy looks like — the shifting sands of alliances and ceasefires and buying and selling," Judith Kipper, a noted Iraq expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said yesterday.

U.S. intelligence officials tell me that the native Iraqi insurgents feel "antagonized" by AQII, which, though tiny, is brutally effective. Four years into this war, many Iraqis are fed up with all the foreigners in their country, including those who have fought supposedly in the local insurgents' interests. On CNN this morning, America's Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus marveled at how Sunni tribes are turning against foreign fighters west of Baghdad, adding that, "What is taking place in Anbar [province] is almost breathtaking."

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