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Interesting FT piece on the Iraqi jihadis
EFL.An Iraqi security official seeking to rebuild Iraqâs dissolved intelligence agency, or mukhabarat, believes some Sunni mosques are acting as local urban bases for jihadis - holy warriors - hiding in the hills across the Syrian border. They can cite Yemenis, Syrians and Iranians caught in Iraqâs cities while trying to launch attacks. "We used to have more than 270 border posts. Now thanks to Americaâs abolition of our security forces, we have only 11," says AJ Mohie, a retired general advising Ayad Allawi, the head of the Governing Councilâs security committee. Traditional Sunni preachers in Iraq say their congregations are increasingly drawn to Wahhabis. Of an adult Sunni male population of perhaps 20,000 in the mixed-Sunni Shia town of Abu Ghaib, 10km from Baghdad, Sheikh Yasseen Zubaie, a Sunni cleric, estimates that as many as 4,000 now worship at Wahabi mosques. Since the capture of Saddam Hussein, Iraqâs resistance has acquired an increasingly religious hue, issuing communiqués and daubing walls with graffiti under the name of "Mohammedâs army". This army appears to be a loose of coalition of cells bearing such religious titles as Jihadi Earthquake Brigades, Saladin Brigades and Al-Mutawakkilun [those who rely on God], aimed at restoring "the capital of the caliphate", Baghdad. Another resistance group operating further north, Ansar al Sunna - literally the Members of the Sunna, a name highlighting its sectarian nature - used the internet to claim responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in the Kurdish capital, Arbil, and has distributed video CDs of what it claims to be its attacks on British, Spanish and Canadian intelligence officers, complete with their passports and identity cards. One of five wills of suicide bombers read out in Ansar al Sunnaâs video warned "the brokers of the West" that jihad would continue "until we get back [the Jerusalem mosque of] Al-Aqsa and Andalucia [Spain]". The videos appear to offer some support to claims that al-Qaedaâs ideology is motivating, if not directing, the attacks. In January, Iraqâs embryonic intelligence services uncovered a video CD circulating in Falluja entitled "Hidaya al Eid" (The Holiday Gifts), in which sheikhs bearing Saudi tribal names such as Al Ghamdi and speaking with Saudi accents boasted of their attacks on US troops. A London-based and Saudi-financed magazine, al Majalla, earlier this month ran an email interview with "an al-Qaeda leader", Abu-Muhammad al-Ablaj, who claimed to have received instructions from Osama bin Laden to direct "the Mujahideen yearning for martyrdom" to go to Iraq. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-18 |
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