Al-Qaeda in Iraq

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Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Organization of Jihad's Base in Mesopotamia) "Al-Qaeda in Iraq"
Participant in the Iraq War 2003
One of the banners featured in the group's propaganda videos
Active
Leaders	Abu Musab al-Zarqawi† Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (Abu Ayyub al-Masri)
Headquarters	Formerly Fallujah, Iraq
Area of operations	Iraq, limited activity in the broader Middle East
Strength	More than 1,000 in 2005[1]
Part of	Ansar al-Sunna (since 2003) Al-Qaeda (since 2004) Mujahideen Shura Council (2006) Islamic State of Iraq (since 2006)
Originated as	Group of Monotheism and Jihad (2003-2004)
Opponents	Iraq: Multinational force in Iraq, Iraqi security forces, Iraqi awakening movements, Kurdish Party, Shia and some of the Sunni militias; United Nations Elsewhere: Egypt, Israel, Jordan
Battles/wars	Iraqi insurgency

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a group playing an active role in the Iraqi insurgency. Initially it was led as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Arabic: جماعة التوحيد والجهاد‎, Group of Monotheism and Jihad) by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death in 2006. It is now believed to be led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir^[2] (presumed to be the Egyptian Abu Ayyub al-Masri^[3]). The group is a direct successor of al-Zarqawi's previous organization, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Group of Monotheism and Jihad). Beginning with its official statement declaring allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in October 2004, the group identifies itself as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR) ("Organization of Jihad's Base in the Country of the Two Rivers").^[4]

Foreign fighters were widely thought to play a key role in the decentralized network,^[5]

Goals and umbrella organizations

Logo of Islamic State of Iraq

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The stated goals of JTJ were to force a withdrawal of U.S-led forces from Iraq, topple the Iraqi interim government and assassinate collaborators with the "occupation," marginalize the Shiite Muslim population and defeat its militias, and to subsequently establish a pure Islamic state. Presumably, if and when those goals are achieved, the global Jihad would continue to establish a pan-Islamic state and remove Western influence from the Muslim world.

In a July 2005 letter to al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Zarqawi outlined a four-stage plan to expand the Iraq War, which included expelling U.S. forces from Iraq, establishing an Islamic authority (caliphate), spreading the conflict to Iraq's secular neighbors and engaging in battle with Israel.^[6] Consistent with their stated plan, the affiliated groups were linked to regional attacks outside Iraq, such as the Sharm al-Sheikh bombings in Egypt.

In January 2006, AQI created an umbrella organization, the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), in an attempt to unify Sunni insurgents in Iraq. However, its efforts to recruit Iraqi Sunni nationalists and secular groups were undermined by its violent tactics against civilians and its extreme Islamic fundamentalist^[7] doctrine. Because of these impediments, the attempt was largely unsuccessful.^[8]

AQI used to claim its attacks under the MSC, until mid-October 2006 when Abu Ayyub al-Masri declared the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), another front which included the Shura Council factions. The AQI now claims its attacks under the ISI,^[9] and claims it's answering to the supreme emir (leader) of the organization, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi. According to a study compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies, the ISI have plans to seize power and turn the country into a Sunni Islamic state.^[10]

Strength and activity

The group's strength is unknown, with estimates that have ranged from 850 to several thousand full-time fighters.^[11][12] In 2006, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research estimated that AQI’s core membership was in a range of "more than 1,000."^[11] (These figures do not include the other six^[13] AQI-led Salafi Jihadi groups organized in the Islamic State of Iraq.) The group is said to be suffering high manpower losses (including from its many "martyrdom" operations), but for a long time this appeared to have little effect on its strength and capabilities, implying a constant flow of volunteers from Iraq and abroad.

According to both the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and the Defense Intelligence Agency reports AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. However, the Congressional Research Service noted in its September 2007 report that attacks from al-Qaeda are less than two percent of the violence in Iraq and criticized the Bush administration’s statistics, noting that its false reporting of insurgency attacks as AQI attacks has increased since the "surge" operations began.^[11][14] In March 2007, the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty analyzed al-Qaeda in Iraq attacks for that month and concluded Al-Qaeda in Iraq had taken credit for 43 out of 439 attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias, and 17 out of 357 attacks on U.S. troops.^[11] They seemed to favor suicide and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, typically using cars and other motor vehicles.

According to a 2006 U.S. Government report, this group is most clearly associated with foreign terrorist cells operating in Iraq and has specifically targeted international forces and Iraqi citizens. According to the report, most of AQI's operatives were not Iraqi, but instead were coming through a series of safe houses, the largest of which is on the Iraq-Syrian border. AQI's operations are predominately Iraq-based, but the United States Department of State alleges that the group maintains an extensive logistical network throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Iran, South Asia, and Europe.^[6]

According to the June 2008 CNN special report, al-Qaeda in Iraq is "a well-oiled organization (...) almost as pedantically bureaucratic as was Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party", including collecting new execution videos long after they stopped publicising them, with a network of spies even in an American bases. According to the report, Iraqis (many of them former members of Hussein's secret services) now effectively run al-Qaeda in Iraq and "foreign fighters' roles seem mostly relegated to the cannon fodder of suicide attacks." The exception from this is the organization's top leadership, which is still dominated by non-Iraqis.^[15]

Some suggest that the threat posed by AQI is exaggerated and some scholars claim that a "heavy focus on al-Qaeda obscures a much more complicated situation on the ground."^[16][17]

Rise and decline

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad was started by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, other foreigners, and local, mostly Kurdish Islamist sympathizers. Zarqawi was a Jordanian who had traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War, but had arrived after the departure of the Soviet troops; instead he busied himself with reporting on the fighting of others. After a trip home, he eventually returned to Afghanistan, running an Islamic militant training camp near Herat in Afghanistan. Zarqawi started the network originally with a focus on overthrowing the Jordanian kingdom, which he considered to be un-Islamic in the fundamentalist sense. Eventually, Zarqawi developed a large number of contacts and affiliates in several countries. His network may have been involved in the late 1999 plot to bomb the Millennium celebrations in the U.S. and Jordan.

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, it is believed that Zarqawi moved westward into Iraq, where he may have received medical treatment in Baghdad for an injured leg. It is believed that he developed extensive ties in Iraq with Ansar al-Islam ("Partisans of Islam"), a Kurdish Islamist militant group that was based in the extreme northeast of the country. Ansar had alleged ties to Iraqi Intelligence; some believed that Saddam Hussein's motivation would have been to use Ansar as a surrogate force to repress the secular Kurds who wanted a "free Kurdistan".^[18] (In January 2003 Ansar's founder, Mullah Krekar, has staunchly denied any such contacts with Saddam's regime, calling Saddam "our enemy" and noting that "Saddam Hussein and his group are outside of Islam's zone."^[19]) The consensus of intelligence officials has since concluded that there were no links whatsoever between Zarqawi and Saddam, and that Saddam viewed Ansar al-Islam "as a threat to the regime" and that Saddam's intelligence officials were spying on the group. The Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence concluded in 2006, "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."^[20]

Zarqawi's operatives have been responsible for the assassination of the U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan in 2002.^[21]

Following the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq, JTJ was developed as a militant network composed of foreign fighters and remnants of Ansar al-Islam to resist the coalition occupation forces and their Iraqi allies. In May 2004 JTJ joined forces with another Islamist organisation, the Salafiah al-Mujahidiah.^[22] Many of foreign fighters were not the group members, but once in Iraq they became dependent on Zarqawi's local contacts. ^[23] The group officially pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in a letter in October 2004.^[24][25][26] That same month, the group, now popularily referred to as "al-Qaeda in Iraq", kidnapped and murdered the Japanese citizen Shosei Koda. In November, al-Zarqawi's network was the main target of the U.S. Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah, but its leadership managed to escape the American siege and subsequent storming of the city. On December 19, al-Qaeda bombed a Shiite funeral procession in Najaf and the main bus station in nearby Karbala, killing at least 60 in the Shiite holy cities in one of its many sectarian attacks. The group also reportedly took responsibility for a September 30 bombing directed at U.S. forces that killed 35 children and seven adults in Baghdad.^[27]

In 2005, IQI largely focused on executing high-profile and coordinated suicide attacks, claiming responsibility for numerous attacks which were primarily aimed at Iraqi civilians. The group launched attacks against voters during the Iraqi legislative election in January, a combined suicide and conventional attack on the Abu Ghraib prison in April, and the coordinated suicide attacks outside the Sheraton Ishtar and Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in October.^[6] In July, Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and execution of Ihab Al-Sherif, Egypt's envoy to Iraq.^[28][29] A July 2005 three-day series of suicide attacks, including Musayyib marketplace bombing, left at least 150 people dead and more than 260 wounded.^[30] Al-Zarqawi also claimed responsibility for the September 14 series of more than a dozen bombings in Baghdad, including the massacre of mostly Shiite unemployed workers, which killed about 160 people and injured 570 in a single day,^[31] as well a series of mosque bombings which killed at least 74 people the same month in Khanaqin.^[32]

The attacks blamed on or claimed by al-Qaeda in Iraq kept increasing in 2006.^[9] In one of the incidents, two American soldiers (Thomas Lowell Tucker and Kristian Menchaca) were captured, tortured and beheaded by the ISI; in another, four Russian embassy officials were abducted and executed. Iraq's al-Qaeda and its umbrella groups were blamed for multiple attacks targeting Iraqi Shiites, some of which AQI claimed responsibility for. The U.S. also claimed the group was at least one of the forces behind the wave of chlorine bombings in Iraq which affected hundreds of people (albeit with few fatalities) through the series of crude chemical warfare attacks between late 2006 and mid-2007.^[33] During 2006, several key members of the AQI were killed or captured by American and allied forces, including al-Zarqawi himself, killed on June 7, 2006, his spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, and the alleged "number two" deputy leader Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi.

Images of the ID cards of two missing U.S. soldiers, publicised by the ISI in early June 2007.

The high-profile attacks linked to the group continued through early 2007, as the AQI-led Islamic State claimed responsibility for attacks such as the March assassination attempt on Sunni Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Salam al-Zaubai, the April Iraqi Parliament bombing, and the May capture and subsequent execution of three American soldiers. In May, ISI leader al-Baghdadi was declared to have been killed in Baghdad, but his death was later denied by the group (later, al-Baghdadi was declared by the U.S. to be non-existent). There were also conflicting reports regarding al-Masri. In March-August, coalition forces fought a major Battle of Baqubah as part of the largely successful attempts to wrest the Diyala Governorate from AQI-aligned forces. Through 2007, the majority of the suicide bombings targeting civilians in Iraq were routinely identified by the military and government sources as being the responsibility of al-Qaeda and its associated groups, even when there was no claim of responsibility (as was in the case of the 2007 Yazidi communities bombings, which killed some 800 and injured more than 1,500 people in the most deadly terrorist attack in Iraq to date).

By late 2007, violent and indiscriminate attacks directed by AQI against Iraqi civilians had severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among the population, isolating the group. In a major blow to AQI, many former Sunni militants that previously fought along with the group started to work with the American forces (see also below). In addition, the U.S. troop surge supplied military planners with more manpower for operations targeting the group, resulting in dozens of high-level AQI members being captured or killed.^[34] Al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be severely crippled.^[35] Accordingly, the bounty issued for al-Masri was eventually cut from $5 million down to a mere $100,000 in April 2008.^[36]

As of 2008, a series of U.S. and Iraqi offensives managed to drive out the AQI-aligned insurgents from their former safe havens such in Diyala (see Diyala campaign) and Al Anbar Governorates and the embattled capital of Baghdad to the area of the northern city of Mosul, the latest of the Iraq War's major battlegrounds.^[36] The struggle for control of Ninawa Governorate (Ninawa campaign) was launched in January 2008 by U.S. and Iraqi forces as part of the large-scale Operation Phantom Phoenix aimed at combating al-Qaeda activity in and around Mosul, as well as finishing off the network's remnants in central Iraq that escaped Operation Phantom Thunder in 2007.

Other activities

Inciting sectarian violence through terrorism

Attacks against civilians often targeted the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence and greater chaos in the country.^[37] Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites^[38] while claiming responsibility for the Shiite mosque bombings.^[39] The same month, a statement claiming to be by AQI rejected as "fake" a letter allegedly written by al-Zawahiri, in which he appears to question the insurgents' tactics in attacking Shiites in Iraq.^[40] In a December 2007 video, al-Zawahiri defended the Islamic State in Iraq, but distanced himself from the crimes against civilians committed by "hypocrites and traitors existing among the ranks".^[41]

U.S. and Iraqi officials accused AQI of trying to slide Iraq into a full-scale civil war between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs with an orchestrated campaign of a civilian massacres and a number of highly provocative attacks against high-profile religious targets.^[42] With attacks like the first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra, the deadly one-day series of bombings which killed at least 215 people in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the second al-Askari bombing, they seemed to have succeeded in provoking Shiite militias to unleash a wave of retaliatory attacks, resulting in a plague of death squad-style killings and spiraling further sectarian violence which escalated in 2006 and early 2007.^[8]

Operations outside Iraq

AQI claimed an attempted chemical bomb plot in Amman, Jordan in April 2004.^[43] On December 3, 2004, AQI also attempted to blow up an Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing, but failed to do so (in 2006, a Jordanian court sentenced Zarqawi (in absentia) and two of his associates to death for their involvement in the plot^[44]). AQI also increased its presence outside Iraq by claiming credit for three attacks in 2005. In the most deadly attack, suicide bomb 2005 Amman bombings killed 60 people in Amman, Jordan, on November 9, 2005.^[45] They also claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks that narrowly missed the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ashland in Jordan and which also targeted Eilat in Israel, and the firing of several rockets into Israel from Lebanon in December.^[6] In addition, Lebanese-Palestinian militant group Fatah al-Islam, which was defeated by Lebanese government forces during the 2007 Lebanon conflict, was linked to AQI and led by Zarqawi's former companion who had fought in Iraq.^[46]

Kidnapping and ransom

The group has long raised money through various activities like ransoming kidnapping victims, car theft (sometimes killing drivers), and hijacking fuel trucks that bring them tens of millions of dollars.^[36] According to an April 2007 statement by the rival Islamic Army, the group was demanding jizya, killing members of wealthy families when not paid.^[47] According to both U.S. and Iraqi sources in May 2008, the Islamic State of Iraq was stepping up its racketeering campaigns as their strictly militant capabilities were on the wane (with especially lucrative activity said to be coming from oil rackets centered on the industrial city of Bayji). According to U.S. military intelligence sources, the group resembles a "Mafia-esque criminal gang."^[36]

Conflicts with the other Sunni militant groups

The first reports of a split and even armed clashes between AQI/MSC and other insurgent Sunni groups date back to 2005.^[48][49] In the summer of 2006, local Sunni tribes and insurgent groups, including the prominent Islamist-nationalist group Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), began to speak of their dissatisfaction with al-Qaeda and its tactics,^[50] and openly criticized the foreign fighters for their deliberate targeting of civilians. In September 2006, thirty Anbar tribes formed their own local alliance called the Anbar Salvation Council (ASC), directed specifically at countering al-Qaeda-allied ("terrorist") forces in the province,^[51][52][53] openly siding with the government and the U.S. troops.^[54][55]

By the beginning of 2007, Sunni tribes and nationalist insurgents had begun battling with their former allies in AQI in order to retake control of their communities.^[56] In early 2007, forces allied to al-Qaeda in Iraq committed a series of attacks against Sunnis critical of the group, including the February 2007 attack in which scores of people were killed when a truck bomb exploded near a mosque in Fallujah.^[57] Al-Qaeda also supposedly played a vital role in the assassination of the leader of the Anbar-based insurgent group 1920 Revolution Brigade (military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement).^[58] In April 2007, the IAI spokesman accused the ISI of killing at least 30 members of the Islamic Army, as well as members of the Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna and Mujahideen Army insurgent groups, and called on Osama bin Laden to personally intervene to rein in al-Qaeda in Iraq.^[47][59] The following month, the government stated that AQI leader al-Masri was killed by ASC fighters.^[3][42] Four days later, AQI released an audio tape in which a man claiming to be al-Masri warned Sunnis not to take part in the political process (later in May the U.S. forces announced the release of dozens of Iraqis who were tortured by AQI as a part of the group's intimidation campaign^[60]), but also said that reports of internal fighting between Sunni militia groups were "lies and fabrications".^[61][62]

By June 2007, the growing hostility between foreign-influenced religious extremists and Sunni nationalists led to open gun battles between the groups in Baghdad.^[63][64] The Islamic Army, however, soon reached a ceasefire agreement with AQI (yet still refused to sign on to the ISI).^[65] There were also reports that Hamas of Iraq insurgents were involved in assisting U.S. troops in their Diyala Governorate operations against al-Qaeda in August 2007. In September 2007, AQI claimed responsibility for the assassination of three people including Sunni sheikh Adbul-Sattar Abu Risha (leader of the Anbar "Awakening council"). That same month, a suicide attack on a mosque in the city of Baqubah killed 28 people, including members of Hamas of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigade, during a meeting at the mosque between tribal, police and guerilla leaders.^[66] Meanwhile, the U.S. military began arming moderate insurgent factions on the promise to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq instead of the Americans.^[67]

By December 2007, the strength of the "Awakening" movement irregulars (also called "Concerned Local Citizens" and "Sons of Iraq") was estimated at some 65,000-80,000 fighters.^[68] Many of them were former insurgents (including even alienated former AQI supporters), now being armed and paid by the Americans specifically to combat al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq. As of July 2007, this highly controversial strategy proved so far to be effective in helping to secure the Sunni districts of Baghdad and the other hotspots of central Iraq and route out al-Qaeda-aligned militants.

Tactics

JTJ differed from other Iraqi insurgent groups considerably in its tactics. Rather than just using conventional weapons and guerrilla tactics, it has relied heavily on suicide bombings, mostly with vehicles, targeting a wide variety of groups but most especially Iraqi Security Forces and those facilitating the occupation. U.S and coalition forces, the United Nations (UN), foreign civilians, humanitarian organizations, Iraqi Shia and Kurdish political and religious figures, Iraqi police and security forces, and Iraqi interim officials have also been targeted. The group have assassinated several leading Iraqi politicians of the early post-Saddam era.^[23]

Zarqawi's militants have been known to use a wide variety of other tactics, however, including targeted assassinations and kidnappings, the planting of improvised explosive devices, mortar attacks, and beginning in a late June 2004 offensive urban guerilla-style attacks using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. TWJ was also known for committing war crimes such as the brutal beheadings of foreign and Iraqi civilian hostages, which were then distributed on the Internet in video footage attributed to the group.^[69]

JTJ cites various texts from the Qur'an and the Sunnah (traditions) of Muhammad that they perceive to support their tactics. They refer to the tradition of the prophet Muhammad where he said to the people of Mecca when conquering them, "By the one in whose hand the soul of Muhammad is in, I came to you with slaughter" narrated in the books of Hadith (traditions). They also quote Muhammad saying, "Whoever slaughters a non-Muslim (at war with Islam, i.e. those perceived to be 'enemy occupiers') sincerely for the sake of Allah, Allah will make hellfire prohibited upon him." as well as many verses of the Qur'an calling Muslims to fight invading non-Muslims and even behead them, such where Allah says in the Qur'an, "when you meet the non-Muslim (enemies in battle) strike their necks." The group's spiritual advisor was Abu Anas al-Shami.

Activities

Attacks

Canal Hotel after TWJ attack

TWJ took responsibility or was blamed for some of the biggest early insurgent attacks, including:

• August 7, 2003: Jordanian embassy bombing in Baghdad which killed 17 and injured at least 40.^[23]
• August 19, 2003: Canal Hotel bombing that killed Sérgio Vieira de Mello and 22 others at the UN headquarters in Baghdad. More than 100 were injured.^[23][69]
• August 29, 2003: Imam Ali Mosque bombing in Najaf that killed Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and more than 85 others. More than 500 were injured.^[69][70]
• November 12, 2003: The truck bombing in Nasiriyah which killed 17 Italian paramilitary policemen and 10 civilians and injured at least 100.^[23]
• March 2, 2004: Series of bombings in Baghdad and Karbala that killed some 178 people and wounded at least 500 during the Day of Ashura.^[71]
• April 19, 2004: Failed plot to explode chemical bombs in Amman, Jordan, said to be financed by Zarqawi's network.^[72]
• April 24, 2004: In a statement published by on the Muntada al-Ansar Islamist web site, Zarqawi took responsibility for suicide boat bombings of the oil pumping stations in the Persian Gulf.
• May 18, 2004: Car bomb assassination of Iraqi Governing Council president Ezzedine Salim in Baghdad.^[73]
• June 18, 2004: The suicide car bombing in Baghdad that killed 35 civilians, and wounded 145.^[74]
• September 14, 2004: Car bomb killed 47 and injured nearly 100 more civilians and police recruits on Haifa Street in Baghdad.^[73][75]

TWJ claimed credit for a number of attacks targeting Coalition and Iraqi forces, including the October 2004 massacre of 49 unarmed Iraqi National Guard recruits, and humanitarian aid agency targets such as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.^[76] The group conducted numerous attacks against U.S. military personnel and Iraqi infrastructure throughout 2004, including suicide attacks inside the Green Zone perimeter in Baghdad.^[77]

Foreign hostages

• Nick Berg, American civilian beheaded on May 7, 2004
• Murat Yuce, Turkish civilian shot dead on August 2, 2004
• Kim Sun-il, South Korean civilian executed on June 22, 2004
• Georgi Lazov and Ivaylo Kepov, Bulgarian civilians beheaded on July 8, 2004.^[78]
• Durmus Kumdereli, Turkish civilian beheaded on September 13, 2004.^[73]
• Eugene Armstrong, American civilian beheaded on September 20, 2004
• Jack Hensley, American civilian beheaded on September 21, 2004
• Kenneth Bigley, British civilian beheaded on October 7, 2004^[73]

Selected key members

Leaders

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed 2006)
• Abu Ayyub al-Masri
• Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi (arrested)^[79]
• Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi (killed 2008)

Other personnel

• Abu Azzam (killed 2005)
• Mohamed Moumou (killed 2008)
• Abu Yaqub al-Masri (killed 2007)
• Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi (captured 2006)
• Khaled al-Mashhadani (captured 2007)
• Mahir al-Zubaydi (killed 2008)
• Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman (killed 2006)

See also

• Islamic terrorism
• Terrorist attacks of the Iraq War

References

External links

• Al-Qaeda in Iraq, GlobalSecurity.org
• Country Reports on Terrorism, United States Department of State
• News about Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times, The New York Times

Articles

• The Myth of AQI by Andrew Tilghman, The Washington Monthly, October 2007
• In motley array of Iraqi foes, why does U.S. spotlight al-Qaida?, Associated Press, June 1, 2007
• Is al-Qaeda on the Run in Iraq?, TIME, May 23, 2007
• Sunni Muslim sheiks join US in fighting Al Qaeda, Christian Science Monitor, May 3, 2007
• Iraq: Al-Qaeda Tactics Lead To Splits Among Insurgents, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 17, 2007
• Al-Qaeda in Iraq May Not Be Threat Here; Intelligence Experts Say Group Is Busy On Its Home Front, The Washington Post, March 18, 2007
• Al Qaeda Nostra, Newsweek, May 21, 2008
• Papers give peek inside al Qaeda in Iraq, CNN special report, June 11, 2008

Videos

• Al-Qaeda in Iraq Al Jazeera English on May 20, 2007