Islamist Groups and Foreign Volunteers

• Islamist groups with access to a significant number of foreign volunteers such as Abu Musab Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq continue to pose a major threat since there appear to be no clear limits to their willingness to escalate the situation even if it means driving Iraq into a civil war that they are ill-situated to win. Indeed, they are likely to escalate the situation even further as their situation becomes even more threatened. It seems almost certain that most al-Qaeda cadres and cells cannot be persuaded, only defeated. Some non-Islamist extremist groups are likely to remain alienated regardless of the actions of the new government or other Sunnis and will likely fold into the most extreme Islamist movements.

• It is unlikely that al-Qaeda makes up more than 10% of the total insurgency, with some estimates placing it as low as 5%. While the number of foreign jihadis have increased over time, it is also important to note that as of June 2005 there were only 600 foreign fighters being held prisoner out of more than 14,000 detainees, a possible indication that foreign jihadis are more likely to fight to the death than their Iraqi counterparts. All the same, they remain the most dangerous element of the insurgency because they have increasingly sought to provoke a civil war between Iraqi Sunni and their Shi'ite and Kurdish counterparts.

State Department Assessment of Abu Musab Zarqawi

• In describing terrorist activity in Iraq in late 2004 and the key role of Islamist groups, the US State Department assessed that as of 2004 Abu Musab Zarqawi and his Jamaat al-Tawhid wal Jihad organization had emerged to play a leading role in terrorist activities inside Iraq, leading to its designation in October as a foreign terrorist organization. In December, the State Department revised that designation to include the Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayin ("The Base of Jihad Organization in Mesopotamia") and other aliases used by Zarqawi following the formal merger between his group and that of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Zarqawi first announced the merger in October and as of December bin Laden endorsed him as his official emissary in Iraq.

• Since February 2004, Zarqawi has sought to create a sectarian war inside Iraq by creating a rift between Shi'ite and Sunni using terrorist attacks against the Iraqi Shi'ites, include major bombings in Baghdad and Karbala March 2004 that killed over 180 Shi'ite pilgrims celebrating the sacred holiday of Ashura. However, he denied responsibility for a major attack in December 2004 in Karbala and An Najaf, indicating a shift in his ideology away from sectarianism since his formal merger with al-Qaeda. Analysts believe Zarqawi has personally murdered American, Korean, and Japanese nationals kidnapped inside Iraq and has allied himself with a number of additional terrorist groups including Ansar al-Sunnah, Ansar al-Islam, and the Islamic Army of Iraq.

• Other terrorist groups active inside Iraq include 3,800 members of the disarmed Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) being held at Camp Ashraf, 400 members of which renounced the group and returned to Iran over the course of 2004. The Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK, KADEK, Kongra Gel) also maintains 3-3,500 armed fighters in northern Iraq according to the Turkish government and NGOs. In 2004, the PKK renounced its ceasefire and launched a series of renewed clashes against security forces in southeastern Turkey.

Zarqawi Operations in 2005

• Estimates differ widely over the size of Zarqawi's movement, the strength of its ties to al-Qaeda, how many of its fighters are Iraqis or foreigners, and how many other Islamist groups exist inside Iraq independent of his influence and that of the larger al-Qaeda network. A variety of groups claim ties to Zarqawi, but it is unknown how many are closely aligned they are and it is likely that some of them see him either as an inspiration or operate along tribal lines almost completely independent of his organization. At the same time, Zarqawi seems to have more than enough resources to mount major assaults such as the spring 2005 attack on Abu Ghraib prison and a majority of the insurgents that US marines fought alongside the Syrian border in May 2005 were either members of Zarqawi's group or otherwise allied with it.

• In the spring of 2004, US officials placed the number of foreign fighters at between 1-2,000, though some in the MNSTC-I as well as Iraqi experts believed that so many volunteers were coming across the Syrian border that the total seemed to be increasing rapidly. Some estimates placed the number of foreign fighters as being in excess of 10,000 prior to the fall of Fallujah, but these may have been exaggerated. More likely, Zarqawi's movement is made up of a scattered network of cells and a limited central organization with no more than 2,000 part and full-time fighters with a core strength of no more than several hundred seasoned al-Qaeda members.

• Zarqawi seems to have replenished his losses following the fighting in Fallujah and recruit far more suicide bombers following the Iraqi elections. It is not yet clear whether or not this was due to Zarqawi's public declaration of loyalty to Osama bin Laden (which would have inspired al-Qaeda and its allies to send volunteers to fight at his behest) or whether his movement already had grown strong enough to cope with the regular attrition rate from US and Iraqi attacks. The problem of infiltration was enough of a problem, however, to make improving border security a top priority in January and February 2005 and the subject of a major Marine offensive in May.

• While US claims as to the importance of capturing or killing top Zarqawi lieutenants or Zarqawi himself sometimes seem exaggerated, there have been major successes towards destroying his organization. In January 2005, then-Prime Minister Allawi announced that Izz al-Din al-Majid had been captured during the fighting in Fallujah. Al-Majid had more than $35,000,000 in his bank account and controlled between $2-7 billion in former regime assets. According to his interrogation, al-Majid was ordered by Zarqawi to unite Ansar al-Sunnah, Jaish Mohammed, and the Islamic Resistance Army into a single organization. Other senior Zarqawi lieutenants have also been captured in addition to al-Majid.

Zarqawi and Suicide Bombings

• The importance of al-Qaeda in Iraq within the insurgency is not determined by its numbers but rather by the fact that its members tend to conduct the bloodiest attacks, divide Iraq along ethno-sectarian lines, and create a series of high-profile bombings that attracts public attention both in and outside of Iraq. For instance, 400 civilians were killed by suicide bombings alone in Iraq during just the first 2 weeks of May 2005.

• The majority of the Iraqi suicide bombers appear to be foreign jihadis recruited by al-Qaeda and other Islamist organizations abroad and sent to Iraq with the intention of seeking "martyrdom." Islamist websites have been filled with the biographies of such "martyrs," though experts differ over how many such suicide bombers exist and where they come from. Reuven Paz calculated in March 2005 that 200 suicide bombings had been carried out and 154 bombers killed en route to executing their mission during the previous 6 months, estimating that 61% were Saudi and 25% were Iraqi, Kuwaiti, or Syrian. Nawaf Obaid found the deaths of 47 suicide bombers reported in Saudi media in May 2005 while Evan Kohlmann found 235 suicide bombers named on Islamist websites since the summer of 2004, 50% of which were Saudi.

• Whatever the exact figures, Saudi officials and counterterrorism experts alike are deeply concerned that both the Saudi clergy and Islamist organizations inside the Kingdom have been recruiting Saudi youths at the behest of terrorist organizations and then sending them to countries such as Syria from which they can infiltrate Iraq. These efforts are separate and individual rather than tied to the al-Qaeda fi al-Jazeera that exists inside the Kingdom and can therefore bypass Saudi counterterrorism efforts with ease. Al-Qaeda has, however, been involved in infiltrations across the Saudi border into Iraq and the involvement of Saudi jihadis in Iraq in general raises the specter of a new generation of Saudi jihadis returning home to the Kingdom.

• Interviews with US and Iraqi officials and commanders as of June 2005 indicated that while many jihadis fighting in Iraq came from as far afield abroad as the Gulf, North Africa, Sudan, and Central Asia that Syria rather than Iran or Saudi Arabia was the major source for infiltration.

• Many low-ranking Islamist volunteers are not trained terrorists or experienced fighters but rather come from a wide range of countries with little or no training with many of them not having any prior experience with any organized terrorist or Islamist group. The bonafide terrorist organizations that do field the majority of Iraqi and foreign jihadis are considerably better organized, armed, and have shown themselves capable of carrying out well-planned ambushes and attacks. These cadres, led by more experienced jihadis, have shown that they can fight hard and are sometimes willing to fight to the death even against superior US and Iraqi firepower.

Zarqawi and the Mass Media

• Zarqawi has been particularly effective at attacking targets with high media and political impact, particularly in the form of suicide bombings and beheadings. While some of his lieutenants have been captured and Syria's recently surrendered Saddam's brother-in-law, much of the Zarqawi's leadership has survived successive US and Iraqi assaults to the point that US officials now believe that it is so well informed that it has developed its own intelligence network capable of warning it to flee towns before US and Iraqi forces arrive as well as assisting them in getting in and out of country.

• While pro-Zarqawi websites often attack Western press for failing to cover some of their attacks, the insurgents have been very successful manipulators of Western and Arab media, tailoring their attacks for maximum coverage and psychological impact. Al-Qaeda in Iraq recently started the online magazine Thirwat al-Sanam in an effort to wage a more effective propaganda and recruiting campaign that has been mirrored by many of its allied groups in an effort to counter the effects of the Iraqi elections and the successive capture of numerous Zarqawi lieutenants. Groups allied to Zarqawi have recently claimed that he is alive and well despite having been injured in battle with Iraqi troops, but this information cannot be independently verified.

Zarqawi and bin Laden

• Since October 2004, Zarqawi has strengthened his ties to foreign terrorist groups with the announcement of his formal merger with al-Qaeda. While there is no evidence that the two men have met or even communicated since the Iraqi insurgency began, bin Laden issued a statement in December 2004 endorsing Zarqawi as his "emir" in Iraq.

• Movements like Ansar al-Sunnah seem to have a mixture of ties to both Zarqawi and al-Qaeda. While largely made up of Iraqi Kurds and Arabs, the extent to which the group retains the international ties of its predecessor Ansar al-Islam (which once provided shelter for Zarqawi) is uncertain. In November 2004, Ansar al-Sunnah announced that it was collaboration with both Zarqawi and the Islamic Army in Iraq.

• In February 2005, a leaked US intelligence memo indicated that intercepted communications from bin Laden to Zarqawi encouraged Iraqi insurgents to begin preparing to attack the US homeland. Even so, it remains unclear to what extent bin Laden provides logistical or financial support to Zarqawi and his organization. A letter written to Zarqawi by his lieutenant Abu Asim al-Qusayami al-Yemeni reflected complaints within al-Qaeda in Iraq about the failure of some of the foreign volunteers to serve as suicide bombers and was atypical complaints and calls used by Zarqawi to try and leverage more support from bin Laden for the Iraqi insurgency.

• Some analysts believe that bin Laden made a strategic error in naming Zarqawi his commander in Iraq since Iraqis tend to be deeply xenophobic towards outsiders in general and neighboring Arab states in particular and as such bin Laden's endorsement of Zarqawi could be portrayed in highly nationalistic terms as a Saudi ordering his Jordanian minion to kill Iraqis. These analysts believe that this will motivate many Iraqis who were previously unsure about the wisdom of supporting the new government.

• As a publicly identified al-Qaeda leader, Zarqawi appears to have initiated some efforts to remake his organization's reputation and to reduce tensions with Iraqi Sunnis and even anti-US Shi'ites as well. His website pronouncements have begun claiming that al-Qaeda in Iraq seeks to avoid Muslim casualties save members of the Iraqi military and security forces and the massive suicide bombing in Hilla in March 2005 was immediately denounced because it killed too many civilians. While Zarqawi remains adamant in his desire to kill Shi'ites, he has recently modified these denunciations to include only those he regards as apostate. It remains clear, however, that mass casualty suicide bombings and similar attacks continue to have support among rank and file members of al-Qaeda in Iraq and as a result it is now unclear whether any Shi'ite movement including Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army would be willing to cooperate with his organization.

• A hour and fourteen minute audiotape released by Zarqawi in March 2005 was far less conciliatory, however, and argued in depth why his attacks were justified even though they killed Muslim civilians on the basis of research done by Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir and rejected the characterization of him as a bloodthirsty murderer, claiming that he had called off attacks in past because he believed too many Muslims would be killed. He then pointed out in that Muslims have been killed in past al-Qaeda attacks and if those were illegitimate because Muslim civilians were killed than jihad everywhere was illegitimate. He explained that Iraq's terrain was far less favorable to guerrilla warfare compared with that of Afghanistan or Chechnya which is why he had been forced to rely on suicide bombings. He also stated that his group did not attack other Islamic sects but only fought against those Shi'ites such as members of the Badr Brigade because they assisted the Americans and were part of a conspiracy to ethnically cleanse Iraq's Sunni population.

Zarqawi and Syria

• Experts differ as to the extent of Syrian tolerance towards Zarqawi and his organization. There have been numerous reports that Iraqi insurgents held a meeting in Syria in April 2005, but this has not been confirmed and US intelligence assessments as of June cast doubt that Zarqawi himself had attended. Still, US, British, and Iraqi experts believe that a majority of Zarqawi's recruits pass through Syria unchecked due to a Syrian policy of tolerance, indifference, or else deliberate support.

Dan's Comments

As JC noted in the comments of the last thread, most of what Cordesman covers in Parts 4 and Part 5 have previously been touched on by either myself or Bill (and other WoC contributors) as far as the composition of the enemy is concerned and the various factors that weigh against the success of the insurgency. One of the things that I think Cordesman does very artfully here is that he puts Zarqawi in perspective to the point where it becomes clear that while killing or capturing him and taking apart his organization is not the end-all be-all solution to our problems in Iraq (although I'll be cynical and say it would probably kick things up at least 10 points as far as whether or not the public supports the war) it would serve to remove the most lethal aspects of the insurgency and go a long way towards stabilizing the situation as far as the Iraqi general public is concerned because Zarqawi's the one who's been responsible for a majority of the car bombing attacks.

Too bad Cordesman doesn't touch on the issue of Zarqawi and Iran (though he does touch on al-Qaeda/Iran later on) as I'd be interested in getting his thoughts on the subject given the purported statements of Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani and others in the Iranian hierarchy on him. Either way, still a very good summation of his activities and the threat he poses to the US inside Iraq.