Anbar

Anbar

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

“There is no way to cure them. They have to be killed.” –Sheikh Hamid al Hais.

When humans judge the disposition of other humans, it is always dangerous intellectual territory. Ideology, for example, can be viewed by competitors as a terminal “disease” whose only cure is the liquidation of all adherents to that ideology. In Caliphate Jihadism, we find those roots have formed through the exposure of those populations to National Socialism and Communism in the 20^th Century. Adolf Hitler and his designated functionaries proved to the world how an efficient government bureaucracy could dispose of other humans that the state believed were inadequate, or worse, enemies of its longevity. While National Socialism pushed its ideology of superiority in Europe, it could not find conflict resolution with competing ideologies and so it simply decided to begin exterminating all other competitors. Under Joseph Stalin’s communist rule in Russia there are also many examples of similar state behavior. When individuals and groups begin to be exterminated by another group that has power, it means the group doing the exterminating believes that it has the foundation of truth in its ideology. We know this is a perversion.

Sheikh Hamis al Hais commands an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 battle-hardened insurgents in al Anbar Province in Iraq. These people believe that they are the Spartans of Iraqi society, that they are physically, intellectually and morally superior to other Iraqi sects. When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq using his Baathist Satrap system, personnel derived from al Anbar Province filled the ranks of Iraq’s Army Officer Corps, police detachments, intelligence and other forward-thinking units. When the United States liberated Iraq, a confused al Anbar population saw members of its own form insurgent groups such as Ansar al Sunnah.

I have been following the activities of Ansar al Sunnah for some time. From an operational perspective, Ansar al Sunnah threw itself into the fray of combat operations against the US led coalition in Iraq for a number of reasons, but chief among them, to me, was the very nature of the Anbar citizen. While Saddam Hussein was a dictator of Iraq and performed terrible deeds upon the Iraqi people, he was a Sunni Muslim after all, and Anbar rallied against US objectives in Iraq because the people of Anbar and other Sunni provinces lost their hold on power.

Shiite death squads also began to prey upon the Sunni provinces and the escalation of ethnic and sectarian violence emerged as one of the greatest obstacles to stability for the new democratically elected Iraqi government. In order to balance the equation, so to speak, it appears as if the Sheiks and other tribal leaders of Anbar province reached out to al Qai’da, and the terrorist organization’ s long transnational arm appeared in Iraq with its black banner and media wing to promote its activities. Al Qai’da is no friend of the Shiites because the Shiites are non-Arab populations that follow a Persian Islamic religious orthodoxy. Al Qai’da penetrations of Anbar emerged under the leadership of the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Unbeknownst to American security thinkers, Zarqawi’s liquidation from precision-guided JDAM munitions delivered by US carrier strike aircraft was a critical blow to the terrorist organization’s longevity in Iraq. Now there are opinions about al Qai’da in Iraq that it is an organization that functions like a “hydra”, in that when one head is cut off another appears to fill the leadership gap. Al Qai’da learned about continuity of its military wing from lessons derived during the Afghanistan War with the former Soviet Union. The only effective army is one that has the resiliency to replace critical personnel in the event that those personnel are lost during direct combat action, or indirect reasons such as disease or other natural debilitating effects. But al Qai’da’s visible transnational mechanism for reconstitution demonstrates a lack of disciplined military science.

Since Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s termination, al Qai’da has not successfully reconstituted its leadership cell in Iraq. This demonstrates a weakness in the terrorist organization’s command and control function, even though it has been able to continue insurgent attacks with territorial agreements inside Iraq through Iraqi native populations.

However, al Qai’da is noticeably desperate to reconstitute and the terrorist organization also demonstrates an overt lack of patience in trying to do so. These are exploitable weaknesses.

One of the foundations of the Caliphate Jihadist martyrdom psychological construct is the belief that martyrdom is not a crime as defined by human “law”, but an activity inspired by what is expected of the Jihadist by “deity”. Since the martyr is seeking death to appeal to the omnipotent being, human interference in the pursuit of glory through martyrdom must itself be a crime to the Caliphate Jihadist. Human interference in martyrdom functions would be interfering with the will of “Allah”. It is also the depriving of the Caliphate Jihadist from the “honorable” death. All human cultures have definitions of what constitutes an “honorable death” in times of war.

Now, al Qai’da has recently created conditions of dishonor for its transnational Caliphate Jihadist effort in Iraq. As I mentioned, when al Qai’da’s critical personalities are liquidated, there appears to be undisciplined movement to hastily shore up new leadership and support structures for the organization wherever it is operating. This past week for example, al Qai’da made a tremendous and undisciplined tactical mistake of liquidating critical personalities in the Anbar insurgent leadership cells. It was reported that twelve critical personalities in the Sunni insurgency were terminated by an al Qai’da action cell, and this follows long-standing abuse in the Anbar province against Sunni centers of power and the Sunni people themselves.

What al Qai’da has done in its undisciplined haste then is to deny these twelve critical personalities their “honorable” death. On terrorist websites there is now a call to action to bring al Qai’da in Iraq on the carpet to answer for these “crimes”. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. How can al Qai’da, the Caliphate Jihadist transnational movement, interfere with the martyrdom foundation and deny loyal adherents their chance not only to slay “apostates” such as US and coalition personnel inside Iraq, but to terminate those martyrs for no previously stated or just reason? Remember, the Sunni insurgents believe they are the Spartans of Iraq, and their code of honor is no different than elite units serving in western nation-states in regards to esprit de corps. They want to know why al Qai’da is killing their leaders, their heroes that fought so bravely on the battlefields of Iraq against the “infidels”, “crusaders” and “invaders”. Al Qai’da denied those men a just death, violating the Sunni Jihadist tradition of war. Since al Qai’da did so, other Sunni insurgents believe that they may also be denied their opportunity to achieve a just death, and siding with America is now a more palatable option. The core of this Jihadi belief is such that their soul cannot be contaminated in any way as it makes its transition into the afterlife or they will not be following the will of Allah and will not be rewarded through this ascension.

So what happened was this. Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri extended an invitation to the Sunni insurgent groups to join al Qai’da. There has been some unifying of insurgent groups since this invitation went out to them. The Islamic State of Iraq and other insurgent organizations heeded the call. But there is a conflict with this new unification because al Qai’da personnel are liquidating critical personalities in competing insurgent groups. Zawahiri errs here, because he is inexperienced with state formation and al Qai’da is desperate to gain control over any nation-state. Iraq would be perfect for their plans because it could be used as a launching pad for attacks all through the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe. What Zawahiri and his advisors are attempting to do is to implement a Taliban-style regime in Iraq expeditiously, a sort of “create as you go” state. That will not work in Anbar province due to the fact that the sheikhs and other tribal leadership cells in that region will have to hand over control to Qai’da because the terrorist organization has defined its own vision of nation-state formation.

The lesson for Sunni insurgents then is that al Qai’da is disrespectful of the martyrdom foundation, while Zawahiri claims that the group is fighting for “Muslims” everywhere. The killing of Sunni insurgent leadership cells is a great betrayal to the Sunnis, even more so when such killing has emerged from an undisciplined operational standpoint by al Qai’da.

Sheikh Hamid al Hais’ comment about the disposition of al Qai’da personnel then is understandable if it is thought about from the context of the Caliphate Jihadist perspective. It means the leadership cells in Anbar province no longer trust al Qai’da and are spooked about the terrorist organization’s methods of nation-state formation. Al Qai’da’s killing of Sunni leaders leaves in its wake a great distrust in other Sunnis towards Taliban ideology, and pulls the curtain back away from any confusion over what al Qai’da is trying to do in Anbar. Al Qai’da’s actions in Iraq make it questionable for Sunni leaders about their own longevity and future. It means that al Qai’da is indiscriminately killing the leaders of the Sunni tribes if the terrorist organization has any doubt whatsoever about the advancement of its agenda for Iraq.

Sheikh Hamid al Hais is telling the United States that the Sunnis in Anbar no longer trust al Qai’da, and he doesn’t mince words about how he thinks it should be resolved. Dr. Ayman Zawahiri has made a tremendous miscalculation in this situation, and an amateurish one at that. The second in command of al Qai’da is attempting to install totalitarian controls in Iraq in the territories that al Qai’da is operating, and the Iraqi people are rejecting it. Such controls are only feasible in nation-states that have been secured. There must be certain levels of nation-state formation before institutions of the state as Zawahiri has defined them can be worked out.

These truths only greatly enhance the capability and efforts of the United States and the democratically-elected Iraqi government.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

Is al Qai’da in Iraq about to be swept away by the forces of freedom?