Friday, October 20, 2006
FWIW
Islamopithecene Update
A number of interesting developments have come to light in the last several days regarding Iraq’s Sunni insurgency:
1. Four jihadist forces pledged allegiance to each other Oct. 13. The Mujahideen Shura Council—a jihadist umbrella alliance composed of six groups and led by al-Qaeda—said it had formed a “Pact of the Mutayyabin” with Jaish al-Fatihin (Army of the Conquerors), Jund al-Sahabah (Army of the Companions), Kataib Ansar al-Tawhid wa al-Sunnah (The Supporters of Monotheism and the Prophetic Tradition Brigades) and several Sunni tribal elders.
2. On Oct. 15, one of the four groups, Jaish al-Fatihin, said it had never taken the oath because it had not been informed about the pact. The Mujahideen Shura Council responded that this announcement must have come from the fifth brigade of Jaish al-Fatihin, which, unlike the organization’s other four brigades, had not yet pledged allegiance to the council. The council expressed hope that it would soon do so.
3. On Oct. 16, the Mujahideen Shura Council called on Sunni nationalist groups to pledge allegiance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the newly declared “Islamic State of Iraq.”
Taken together, these three developments indicate that transnational jihadist elements are trying to capture political space in Sunni-dominated central Iraq. Their approach involves seizing the military and political initiative from the mainstream Sunni nationalist insurgent groups. The jihadists are trying to take advantage of the fact that the political negotiation process is reaching an impasse, the sectarian violence from Shiite death-squads is raging on, and moves are accelerating toward creating three federal autonomous zones along ethno-sectarian lines.
While the mainstream Sunnis are busy trying to counter the move toward federalism, the jihadists have accepted the idea that Iraq could be divided into three autonomous, if not independent, regions. The jihadists aim to take control of the situation. They are busy trying to make inroads into the tribal leadership and the insurgent groups by forming alliances. In other words, they are trying to portray themselves as the vanguard of the military struggle against the United States and its Shiite and Kurdish allies.
The jihadists face two major obstacles in pursuing this path.
First is that the Sunni areas of Iraq already have an existing political structure, which will not allow them to take over. There have been several reports in recent months of fighting between Sunni nationalist groups and the jihadists. But now that the jihadists are aggressively seeking the leadership of the insurgency, the Sunni nationalists can be expected to strike back hard, and soon. Neither they nor the tribal leaders want to lose their leadership position to the jihadists.
Second, the jihadists themselves are divided into two broad groups: the foreigners and the indigenous Iraqis. Both share the same transnational ideology, but they disagree on how to realize its ideals. The indigenous Iraqis do not like the way the foreigners operate—killing not just Shia but also Sunnis who oppose them. Moreover, the Iraqi jihadists do not want to see the foreigners take over the leadership, because they know it will alienate them from the Sunni mainstream.
Despite the creation of dubious alliances and a media campaign to highlight their “achievements,” al Qaeda and its jihadist allies now face problems from fellow jihadists as well as Sunni nationalists. While it might appear that this would lead to a decline in the violence, the country is now so divided that the fighting is only likely to get worse.
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