More attacks are feared as extremists regroup before the coming elections, writes Ernesto Londonoin Baghdad
SUNNI INSURGENT group al-Qaeda in Iraq has rebounded in strength in recent months and appears to be launching a concerted effort to cripple the Iraqi government as US troops withdraw, Iraqi and American officials say.
The group has admitted responsibility for four powerful bombings that targeted five government buildings in Baghdad in August and October – the deadliest attacks directed at the government in more than six years of war.
Authorities say al-Qaeda in Iraq intends to carry out additional high-profile attacks in the months ahead and is attempting to regain its foothold in former strongholds just outside the capital.
The strategy represents a shift in tactics from the group’s efforts to kindle the kind of sectarian violence that brought Iraq to the brink of anarchy in 2007.
The group suffered major setbacks after the “surge” in US troops to Iraq that year, but American and Iraqi officials say al-Qaeda in Iraq has found more recent success by enlisting other groups in an effort aimed at undermining elections scheduled for January and the formation of a new government.
Although the group has lost many top leaders, funding sources and popular support, it stands to gain from a deeply divided political establishment, growing Sunni resentment toward the Shia-led government, disjointed Iraqi security agencies and the diminishing ability of US forces to engage in combat operations in Iraq.
“They’re still capable of conducting singular high-profile attacks,” Gen Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, said. “Those are very difficult to prevent.”
What was once a foreign-led terrorist organisation is now a mostly Iraqi network of small, roving cells that continue to rely on the flow of fighters and weapons smuggled through the Syrian border, albeit at a slower rate, US and Iraqi officials say.
Maj Gen Hussein Kamal, the Iraqi interior ministry’s chief of intelligence and investigations, said Iraqi officials suspected the August 19th and October 25th bombings, which targeted the foreign, justice and finance ministries among other entities, were planned at a secret meeting in Zabadani, a city in southwestern Syria, close to the Lebanese border.
He said al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq met former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party on July 30th to chart out a new strategy.
“They made a plan to carry out major joint operations in central Baghdad targeting important buildings,” Maj Gen Kamal said in an interview. The attacks killed more than 250 people and wounded more than 1,000.
The blasts were deeply damaging to the government of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who just weeks earlier had trumpeted the readiness of his security forces to maintain order as most US troops pulled out of Iraqi cities.
The government announced the arrest of former members of the Baath Party and accused Syria of harbouring terrorist cells. Syrian officials have said they do not condone attacks on Iraqi soil.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq came to control large parts of the country between 2005 and 2008. The group is the largest within the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organisation that seeks to turn Iraq into a dogmatic Islamic republic run by Sunnis.
The US troop surge in 2007 and the creation of American-funded Sunni paramilitary groups left al- Qaeda in Iraq reeling, as scores of its leaders were killed or detained.
However, after the provincial election in Iraq this year, al-Qaeda leaders offered an olive branch to other Sunni extremist groups, issuing a message that even went as far as extending “a hand of forgiveness” to those who worked with the Americans.
Some groups responded favourably to the overture, but there is little evidence that al-Qaeda in Iraq’s membership has swelled significantly, according to Rita Katz, who runs the SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based organisation that analyses extremist organisations.
It does not appear that Sunni paramilitary groups that once worked with the US have rejoined the insurgency, even though many have been angered that the US has handed responsibility for them over to the Shia-led government.
Iraqi and American officials worry about an increase in attacks in the run-up to the elections, scheduled for January 18th.
The weeks and months after the vote could be particularly critical because key security jobs could go unfilled indefinitely as elected officials divvy up ministries and major posts. The government was almost virtually paralyszed after the 2005 election amid squabbling over top jobs – an impasse that coincided with an increase in violence.
– (Washington Post service)