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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Michael Rubin's Ansar al-Sunnah overview |
| 2004-12-22 |
| On February 1, Iraqi Kurdish political leaders marked the Eid al-Adha holiday much as they have for the past ten years. In each provincial capital, the Kurdistan Democratic Party [KDP] and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] hosted receptions where local constituents could meet with party leaders and communicate their concerns. However, the festivities were brutally interrupted when suicide bombers entered the PUK and KDP headquarters in Erbil, detonating themselves almost simultaneously, killing 109 people, including KDP Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman and KDP Minister of Agriculture Saad Abdullah. Adnan Mufti, a head of the PUK office in Erbil and a former deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, survived the attack in his headquarters only because suspicious bodyguards rushed the bomber, shielding him from the full force of the blast (he was nonetheless badly wounded). Responsibility for the blasts was claimed by a hitherto obscure group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna (Defenders of the Tradition), which trumpeted the attack as a blow against "two dens of the devils . . . inflicting harm on the collaborators with the Jews and Christians."[1] The simultaneous suicide bombings - the first to cause mass civilian casualties in the once-peaceful Kurdish enclave  heralded the rise of a dangerous new amalgam of Kurdish Islamist militants who have returned to Iraq from Iran and foreign al-Qaeda operatives who have infiltrated the country from Syria. Ansar al-Sunna is an outgrowth of Ansar al-Islam [Defenders of Islam], a group with ties to Iran and which administration officials have linked to al-Qaeda.[2] Initially operating under the moniker Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), Ansar al-Islam grew out of the September 2001 unification of several militant Islamist groups which had taken root in the mountains of northern Iraq along the Iranian border. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #6 LH: CA - the problem seems to be the general - i think the best would have been to have kept the troops, or at least the NCO's and junior officers (since the troops were all basically heading home anyway), and to replace the senior officers. LH has this bee in his bonnet about the junior people. The problem with this thesis is that most of the good junior guys are Sunnis. The US invasion of Iraq meant a sectarian transfer of power from Arab Sunnis to Shias and Kurds. For this reason, the Iraq situation is far different from what happened in post-war Germany and Japan. Arab Sunnis could not have been trusted in most military positions, just as Israeli Arabs can't be trusted in most IDF roles. It's just a fact of life - unpleasant, but true, until Iraqis settle their sectarian differences. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-22 4:35:03 PM |
| #5 CA - the problem seems to be the general - i think the best would have been to have kept the troops, or at least the NCO's and junior officers (since the troops were all basically heading home anyway), and to replace the senior officers. Instead we lost the troops and the NCO's but called back the old general. Looks like we got the worst of both worlds. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-22 4:18:00 PM |
| #4 It also reinforces Jerry Bremer's decision to disband and deny a Baatish role, the liberal condemnations to the contrary. |
| Posted by: Capt America 2004-12-22 2:13:50 PM |
| #3 It has taken root in Iraq, and especially the area around Mosul, both because of Coalition failure to secure the Syrian and Iranian borders with Iraq |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-22 11:13:20 AM |
| #2 Article: Iraqis say that Mosul was also an effective nexus for coordination between Ansar militants and newly-arrived foreign terrorists because of the reconciliation policy implemented by Major-General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, during his year of residence in the city.[6] Petraeus entrust Syrian border security to General Mahmoud Muhammad al-Maris, a former Baathist who may have facilitated infiltration of insurgents from Syria.[7] Maris is also a member of the al-Shammari tribe, which spans the Iraqi-Syrian frontier and is perceived by Iraqis to be sympathetic to Saddam Hussein.[8] It looks like disbanding the Iraqi Army was one of the smartest things done by the coalition. Every single time Coalition forces have trusted former Iraqi military figures, they have been stabbed in the back. It's not true that most Baathists were innocent - it appears that many of them were just Saddams-in-waiting. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-22 10:24:56 AM |
| #1 "Ansar al-Sunna is not purely a homegrown terrorist operation. Many of its recruits appear to be infiltrators from beyond the borders of Iraq. It has taken root in Iraq, and especially the area around Mosul, both because of Coalition failure to secure the Syrian and Iranian borders with Iraq and because of a reconciliation policy which mitigates pressure upon planning and organization. Iranian and Syrian officials are likely involved in facilitating the group member’s infiltration to Iraq given the evidence of visas and safe houses. The wide variety of weapons the group appears to have at its disposal, as well as the level of its media sophistication, suggests that the group may have access to outside financial resources." Clearly, the Mosul DFAC attack adds credance to the involvement of Syria and Iran. I guess we will need to wait for final confirmation, but that was one highly accurate missle that hit that place and clearly not something that Saddam had buried out in the desert. |
| Posted by: TomAnon 2004-12-22 10:10:57 AM |