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Iraq |
Arab analyst's view of Zarqawi in Iraq |
2005-11-24 |
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is attaining legendary status. Glorified by militant Salafists and jihadists the world over as an invincible warrior and vilified by Western governments as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, Zarqawi currently occupies commanding heights among jihadi networks. While the Zarqawi phenomenon is largely a product of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, his disproportionate influence on the Iraqi insurgency is detrimental to the long-term interests of the Iraqi nationalist âresistance.â The Zarqawi network in its latest incarnation, namely the âQaedat al-Jihad fi Bilad ar-Rafidainâ (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers) is often assumed to be the core component of the Iraqi insurgency. This erroneous assessment is largely due to the organizationâs carefully calibrated operations that are marked by suicide bombings (against hard and soft targets alike) that claim many victims and indiscriminately target civilians, high-profile kidnappings and the slaughtering of members of the new Iraqi security forces and any elements that are connected to the coalition presence in Iraq. This article attempts to understand the Zarqawi networkâs size in relation to the overall Iraqi resistance by analyzing the movementâs military operationsâits strategies and tactics and linking these to the organizationâs literature and Zarqawiâs speechesâin order to shed new light on the motives and goals of Salafi-jihadists in Iraq. Being a Salafi-jihadist movement, al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers considers its struggle in Iraq as a cosmic conflict between âgood and evil.â Their strategic vision includes the creation of a safe haven for al-Qaedaâs operations in the region and beyond, which indicates that they have much more than political objectives in Iraq. According to Zarqawi: âWe do not fight for a fistful of dust or illusory boundaries drawn by âSikes-Picotâ. We are not fighting so that a Western evil would replace an Arab evil. Ours is a higher and more sublime fight. We are fighting so that Allahâs word becomes supreme and religion is all for Allah. Anyone who opposes this goal or stands in the way of this aim is our enemy and will be a target for our swords, regardless of their name or lineage ⊠a Muslim American is our dear brother: an infidel Arab is our hated enemy, even if we both come from the same wombâ [1]. He also says, âWe have revived the jurisprudence of our good ancestors in fighting heretics and enforcing Allahâs law on them. Jihad will be continuous, and will not distinguish between Western infidels or heretic Arabs until the rule of caliphate is restored or we die in the process.â In order to develop a better understanding of al-Zarqawi's "enemies" and his organizationâs military strategies, this article makes use of reliable information from different sources on the experience of two years of American occupation of Iraq (April 10, 2003 â April 10, 2005) [2]. There are eight types of tactics used by the Iraqi resistance: general attacks, arson attacks, bombings, shootings, suicide attacks, car bombs, assassinations and abductions [3]. Table 1 and Chart 1 (see below) provide several indications: Zarqawi and his faction constitute only 14% of the total Iraqi resistance, which clearly indicates that the networkâs size is limited and the international media is largely responsible for exaggerating their role. In addition, Zarqawiâs tactics are dramatic as his faction routinely resorts to suicide attacks. Suicide bombings by the Zarqawi network, which make up 42.2% total suicide attacks in Iraq, have many advantages, the most important of which are low cost, lack of need for escape plans and media coverage. The percentage of suicide attacks perpetrated by Zarqawiâs faction to the overall number of victims of other operations is 70% dead and 83.7% injured (see table 2). The high rate of victims apparently proves the effectiveness of the terrorist act (table 2 indicates that civilian victims of this tactic are as high as 80%) and achieves a large media coverage. There are two main indicators that illustrate the real objectives of Salafi-jihadists in Iraq: namely identifying the targets of the attacks, and the movementâs literature, which reveals its vision for Iraq and the broader region in light of the American occupation. Each factor supports the other analytically. 49% of Zarqawiâs targets are military (see chart 2). In addition, 76.2% of the overall military targets were Iraqi and only 23.8% were American. On the other hand, political targets (including national political figures, local officials, political offices such as embassies and UN facilities) come second to military ones (36.2%), followed by economic targets (collaborators and companies)â14.1%, and finally ethno-religious targetsâ0.6%. Such quantitative data reveal that the âinternal agendaâ is of great significance to the network. Naturally, the âoriginal enemy,â according to Salafi-jihadists, is the United States; however, attacking internal targets (Iraqi security forces, Iraqi politicians, collaborators, etc.) is also of great importance, as indicated by the growing number of civilian victims. Zarqawi believes that by establishing an Iraqi government and training Iraqi police, the Americans are aiming to âkeep themselves from being killedâ and indirectly âoccupying the nation and robbing its richesâ [4]. In his letter, which was leaked by the American forces and published by the London-based Hayat newspaper, Zarqawi asserts that the âenemiesâ are the American forces and the Allianceâthe Shiâite (whom they call the Rafida, or renegades)âand the Kurds, who are represented by Talabani and Barazani. In that letter, Zarqawi calls for targeting the Shiâites âbecause they have put on the military uniforms,â a direct reference to the domination of the new Iraqi security forces by the religious Shiites. Zarqawi sees the Shiites as a graver danger than the Americans and believes that this threat can most effectively galvanize Iraqâs embattled Arab Sunni community against the new Iraq [5]. Establishing a safe haven for al-Qaeda depends on foiling the American plan that aims, according to Salafi-jihadists, to plant âpuppetsâ in the new Iraqi government. As a result, the Zarqawi network has identified a range of targets that consist mostly of collaborators and companies (transport and contractors), which contrasts sharply with the targets of the nationalist Iraqi âresistanceâ that focus on oil facilities and the broader economic infrastructure that aim to show that the American project in Iraq is failing [6]. The divergence in tactics is rooted in wholly divergent strategic objectives. The nationalist Iraqi âresistanceâ has a realizable political aim: they want to end the occupation and participate in ruling the country. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in Iraq sees the Iraq conflict as a temporary (albeit the most important) arena in which the greater struggle between the Salafi-jihadists and the United States unfolds. In regards to targeting Shiâites and Kurds, it is clear that despite the networkâs literature, which is full of extreme threats against Shiites and to a lesser extent the Kurds, the declared operations against the former are almost non-existent. It is important to understand that in their public literature, al-Qaeda in Iraq justify targeting Shiâites on the basis of this communityâs open and wide-ranging cooperation with the occupation, and not on their supposedly âhereticalâ beliefs. This is the case with the religious Shiâite political organizations, whose militias, in particular the highly effective al-Badr paramilitary organization (labeled as âal-Ghadr,â or âtreacheryâ by the Salafi-jihadists) largely dominate the new Iraqi security structures. The Zarqawi network is mindful of the harmful effect of targeting Shiâites insofar as global Muslim public opinion is concerned, and hence it tries to justify the targeting of Shiâite security elites on political rather than religious grounds. The Zarqawi network is also mindful of the level of support it enjoys amongst local Iraqi communities. This not only creates problems insofar as targeting Shiâites is concerned, but also has implications for targeting the new security forces in their entirety. Zarqawi mentioned this point in his letter and talked of the difficulty of inciting people to fight the police, with whom they share kinship and have other relationships. This creates a dilemma for the faction: they either force their local Iraqi recruits to fight their relatives or âpack their bags and search for another land that would repeat the sad story in the fields of Jihadâ [7]. Irrespective of these daunting challenges, Zarqawi still declared war on the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades (better known as the Badr Corps and now formally referred to as the Badr Organization) and even proposed establishing âOmarâ Brigades to assassinate the leaders of the Badr paramilitary organization and the skilful and influential politicians of Hizb ad-Dawa, thus masking his war against the rising religious Shiâite power in Iraq with overly-ambitious political goals. While the Salafi-jihadists have inevitably become embroiled in the treacherous politics of occupied Iraq, they have not retreated even an inch from their ideological beliefs and strategic objectives. The Salafi-jihadists in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, see the Iraq conflict as part of their jihad, first and foremost, and secondly as a springboard for a wider regional conflict that has as its central aim uprooting the current political order in the region. This clearly demonstrates how the Salafi-jihadist¬ way has a radically different agenda from that of national- or ethnic-based resistance movements in unstable regions in which they have arrived (usually uninvited), thus imposing a daunting burden on these local resistance movements. Whether the wider nationalist Iraqi âresistanceâ can overcome the challenge of the Salafi-jihadists and reach some form of truce with the new Iraqi state remains to be seen. |
Posted by:Dan Darling |
#1 Doomed to failure by his groups violent acts against the very people his group should be winning over 'hearts and minds' hehehehehe, why is this absolutly gigantic stratigic blunder not attracting any media coverage at all?? hearts and minds was according to the all knowing media the key to winning over the Iraqi people, hell even if a coalition soldier looked at an Iraqi the wrong way the media would cry hearts and minds so why not now eh. I seriously beleive that the media is the key eneamy in this war for the the way they aide the eneamy and acts as thier propaganda is seriously disturbing, the BBC and C4 are the worst offenders in this country with an over whelming anti bush/blair pro terrorist news agenda. these 'news' companies need taking down perminantly! |
Posted by: Shep UK 2005-11-24 15:01 |