Allies could end Iraq's al-Qaeda
scourge By Daniel DePetris
It was an ordinary early morning in
Baghdad in February 2012. Mothers and fathers were
stuck in the grueling traffic of the capital, on
their way to work. Their children were all packed
up and ready to go to school. Shops were opening
up in Baghdad's market, hoping to profit from the
morning rush hour.
Then, at a moment's
notice, Iraqis in Baghdad and several other Iraqi
cities found themselves in the middle of a
coordinated series of terrorist attacks. The
streets were literally painted red with blood,
human body parts spread all over the concrete.
Some of the shops that opened were either
completely destroyed or had their windows bashed
by the booming effects of the bombs.
Frantic Iraqis close to the bombings were
quick to get on their phones and call their loved
ones, assuring them that they were alive. When the
attacks were all said and done, a total of 55 Iraqis
were killed in a span of
two-hours, with Baghdad the worst hit.
The
Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), al-Qaeda's front
group in Iraq, would boast a day later on its
website that it was the group responsible for the
bombing spree. And in typical al-Qaeda fashion, it
was more than happy to explain why it killed those
Iraqis and why it was perfectly legitimate to do
so.
To the regret of the Iraqi people, the
group was only getting started. Two weeks later,
Sunni militants would repeat this boldness, this
time exclusively against Iraqi police officers in
the one-time al-Qaeda stronghold of Haditha, over
100 miles (160.9 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
Stocked with black SUVs, fake arrest
warrants, and official Iraqi police uniforms, the
gunmen drove into Haditha and started a shooting
spree that would eventually kill a total of 27
officers and two high-ranking police commanders.
Using the arrest warrants as credentials, the
black SUV convoy trucked to the home of Captain
Khalid Dahan - the commander of Haditha's SWAT
team - where the militants dragged him out of his
house and killed him shortly afterwards. The
former commander of the city's emergency police,
Mohammad Hassan, would also become a victim inside
his own home, exhibiting the insurgents' knack for
finding their targets and executing their plans
without a hitch.
During its heyday,
al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was Iraq's most formidable
insurgent group, striking in the heart of Baghdad
and contributing to a civil war that claimed the
lives of thousands of Iraqis every month. At one
point, the affiliate controlled Iraq's largest
province, al-Anbar, declaring it an Islamic
caliphate. President George W Bush clearly grasped
the extent of how dangerous al-Qaeda in Iraq was,
calling it America's number-one enemy during the
war's darkest years.
Fast-forward six
years, and AQI is a degraded group of jihadist
"misfits" whose puritanical version of Islam is
rejected by the vast majority of the Iraqi
population. But as the recent attacks show, the
organization is still capable of mobilizing
resources, staking out targets, and killing Iraqis
before Iraq's struggling police force can thwart
the attacks.
The scope of the
attack Al-Qaeda is no stranger to
complicated, mass-casualty attacks. But in Iraq,
these attacks are particularly disturbing, for
they give Iraqis yet another justification to
separate themselves from a group of politicians
that the general public views as corrupt and
unable to get the country on the right path.
The attack on February 23 occurred in 12
separate cities and on a number of different
targets. According to CBS News, 14 of those
attacks were against Iraqi security personnel.
This violence demonstrates to Iraqis that their
soldiers and police officers are unable to prevent
attacks before they materialize.
Such
attacks also instill an enormous amount of fear
among the ranks of the security forces, the first
line of defense for the people against terrorist
and insurgent groups. If an Iraqi police officer
can suddenly get shot up at a traffic checkpoint
during daylight, or get slaughtered in his own
living room without any prior warning, other young
men desperate for work may have second thoughts
about joining the police academy.
For an
Iraq just starting to operate independently,
without a US military buffer and without US
intelligence capabilities, such a development
could be quite destabilizing to the country's
security. It would also be a rebuke to Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has staked his
legitimacy on his ability to pursue all terrorists
without relenting.
Widening the
gap The Iraqi people are already tired of
their politicians fighting with one another
instead of doing the nation's business. These
days, Maliki is more concerned with solidifying
his grip on the Iraqi government than reaching out
to other coalitions. Maliki's opponents,
meanwhile, continue to spend much of their time
highlighting the prime minister's abuses. The
Iraqi parliament passed a US$100-billion national
budget last month, but this was a rare moment of
consensus.
Al-Qaeda's attacks reinforce
the divide between the Iraqi people and their
government. While their politicians fight with
each other in their comfortable, air-conditioned
offices, tucked away behind 20-foot (6-meter)
cement walls in the International Zone and
protected by million-dollar armored cars, ordinary
Iraqis continue to deal with horrific violence on
a daily basis as a result of the government's
incompetence.
Whether this is actually an
accurate portrayal of what is happening on the
ground does not really matter. More important is
the perception among the Iraqi public that the
government is unable or unwilling to provide for
their needs. Iraqis have been protesting in
Baghdad over encroachments on political freedoms,
unemployment, police abuse, and electricity
outages.
Only 32% of Iraqis interviewed by
Gallup are satisfied by their current living
conditions. And in a figure that reveals that
sectarianism is still very much at play in Iraqi
politics, only 13% of Sunni Muslims interviewed in
the same poll hold confidence in the current
national unity government.
These numbers
are disturbing in their own right, but when
coupled with mass-casualty terrorist attacks on
civilian and police targets once every few weeks,
the frustration, anger, and disappointment of
Iraqis can potentially grow out of control if not
addressed substantially by Maliki and his
administration.
"Political differences,
bombings, and acts of violence are nothing new to
Iraqis," says one Iraqi store owner. "We grew
accustomed to them years ago." AQI is hoping that
its bombings, shootings, and IED attacks will
gradually diminish the confidence and popularity
of Iraq's governing institutions. The terrorist
group may not pick up recruits as a result of its
bombings, but these attacks nonetheless contribute
to the peoples' disenchantment with their leaders.
Get the Shi'ites to
overreact AQI has long predicated its
strategy on encouraging Iraq's Shi'ites to
overreact. They got their wish in 2006, when
Shi'ite militias operating under a variety of
names retaliated by targeting Sunni neighborhoods
in Baghdad and displacing tens of thousands of
people from the capital.
Al-Qaeda's
strategy, however, has been a terrible failure in
this regard. Iraq's sectarian landscape may still
have significant problems, but those problems have
taken on a new form, far from the tit-for-tat
street violence between armed Sunni and Shi'ite
factions around Baghdad.
Today, a decent
chunk of those militias have either disarmed or
have deliberately integrated themselves into the
Iraqi security forces. Former members of Muqtada
al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi, and a significant
proportion of the Badr Brigade, have become Iraqi
police officers. Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a breakaway
faction of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, recently
decided to follow suit by elevating politics above
violence in its list of preferences.
The
Shi'ites, in other words, have placed most of
their chips in the parliament instead of on the
street, knowing full well that their demographic
majority provides them with most of the power
relative to the Sunnis and Kurds.
This
does not mean that the Shi'ites will keep their
cool. Maliki and his allies in the Shi'ite
umbrella National Iraqi Alliance have ruffled the
feathers of the Sunni community since the Iraqi
governing coalition was formed in 2010. Maliki has
repeatedly disavowed his previous promises to give
Sunnis their ministry portfolios, and the looming
cloud of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi's
supposed involvement in sectarian crimes is a near
guarantee that Sunni suspicion will not dissipate
any time soon.
The rationale behind AQI's
bombings in predominately Shi'ite neighborhoods
remains the same: compel the Shi'ites to overplay
their hand. Yet now, Sunni extremists may be
baiting the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government and
security forces to respond in counterproductive
ways.
Play the Iran card Anyone
who has monitored Iraq since the US invasion and
occupation has almost come to expect massive
Shi'ite casualties in the face of an aggressive
AQI. Al-Qaeda's publications broadcast their
disdain for Shi'ite Muslims by using such words as
"heretics", "dogs" and "apostates" to describe
those following the Shi'ite branch of Islam. But
lately, AQI has brought Iran into its public
statements, at times citing Tehran's influence in
Iraq as another justification for its operations.
After a string of suicide attacks and
bombings on December 22, 2011, AQI mentioned the
Iranians in its press release claiming
responsibility. In one such statement, AQI branded
itself as the defender of Iraq's Sunnis against a
Persian project that seeks to divide and conquer
Iraq for its own dominion: "The mujahideen will
never stand with their hands tied while the
pernicious Iranian project showed its ugly face
and what it wants with Sunnis in Iraq became
obvious and exposed."
The statement is
riddled with sectarianism and repugnance for all
Shi'ites, referring to Maliki as the head of a
"Safavid government", which in history is often
credited with introducing Shi'ism as the dominant
religion in Persia. In other words, Maliki is
nothing but an extension of the Safavids centuries
earlier, with Iranians supporting his quest to
oppress the ambitions of Iraqi Sunnis.
AQI's anti-Iranian rhetoric is not exactly
surprising. Yet its media releases have referenced
Iran more than usual, begging the question of
whether the group's support among Iraq's Sunnis is
at a low point. Why else would they refer to the
"Persian project" to provide legitimacy to their
attacks?
The answer may be because
Shi'ite-bashing has not worked. Its indiscriminate
bombings in Shi'ite neighborhoods have turned off
millions of Iraqis - including Sunnis, who have
come to view AQI's Shi'ite-bashing as an attempt
to fragment the Iraqi state. Bashing Iran, a
country many Iraqis are already suspicious of,
just might do the trick instead.
Give
Arab leaders second thoughts For the first
time since 1990, Baghdad will play host to a
regional meeting of Arab ministers. The occasion
is huge one for the Iraqi government, which has
been trying to re-assert itself as a central actor
in the Middle East whose opinions on regional
developments should be taken seriously.
That campaign has been lackluster for
Maliki thus far, with the monarchies of the Sunni
Gulf still distrustful of the direction Iraq is
going. Relations between Saudi King Abdullah bin
Abdul Aziz and Maliki, although warmer than they
were before the appointment of a Saudi ambassador
to Baghdad, remain rocky at best.
One of
the many diplomatic cables released by the
anti-secrecy group Wikileaks depicts a disgruntled
Saudi king laying out his grievances to US
officials about the Iraqi prime minister. The
Iraqi government's support for Shi'ite protesters
in Bahrain - and its opposition to last year's
Gulf Cooperation Council intervention - did not
help the situation.
This made the Baghdad
summit this week all the more important, if not
for the simple reason of assembling the entire
Arab community on Iraqi soil for the first time in
decades. Regional cooperation of any kind,
especially around counter-terrorism, would put
even more pressure on the group, whose loss of
commanders and foot-soldiers to joint US and Iraqi
raids over the years has hindered its operational
reach.
Gone are the days when Baghdad,
once the cradle of civilization, was the epicenter
of terrorism, sectarian attacks, violent crime and
ethnic cleansing. The country still has its
problems, from political inclusion and high
unemployment to mass poverty and Arab-Kurdish
tensions. But what was once a powerful and
dominant al-Qaeda in Iraq, controlling territory
and governing the lives of Sunnis in Anbar
province, is now a shadow of its former
self-struggling to survive and prove itself
relevant.
Yet however unpopular the group
has become, AQI has indeed demonstrated its
capacity to adapt to an evolving strategic
environment. With US and coalition troops out of
Iraq for good, AQI has turned its sights on the
Shi'ite-dominated central government of Maliki,
administering attacks that are occasional yet
deadly and destabilizing.
The recent
uptick in AQI attacks is not only a testament to
its lethality, but a graphic example of its
ability to capture global headlines and instill
fear in the hearts of Iraqis just trying to get
through the day. Promoting discord is certainly
not an ideology Iraqis are willing to support. But
over time, it could give Iraqis reason to doubt
the strength and competency of their own
government.
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