Sunni Opposition May Transcend Divisions

​​Descriptions of Iraq's armed opposition often divide it into a set of wholly independent categories which apparently do not have much in common. The categories include the patriotic former army officers, the foreign terrorists, the Sunni Arabs determined to regain power, the Muslims opposed to any kind of foreign occupation, the tribal factions pursuing their own specific vendettas, the die-hard Ba'athists – and the "pissed-off" Iraqis (in coalition soldier jargon, POIs) who are simply sick of the foreign forces occupying their country.

While a few key figures have emerged, such as the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the former Saddam acolyte Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, they do not appear as uncontested leaders. The armed opposition has not set up any kind of civilian political representation, as the Northern Irish republicans did with Sinn Fein, for example.

Opposition has come a long way

Nor have they published a specific political programme. So the dominant image remains that of a diffuse and largely anonymous multitude. But though that perception may have been accurate in 2003, the opposition has come a long way since then.

Broadly speaking, the change can be seen as a form of stabilisation. At first the opposition was multi-confessional and represented a cross-section of Iraqi society as a whole. But it has grown more focused as the political landscape has polarised, and it is now almost exclusively Sunni Arab. A number of large, easily recognisable groups have emerged, further simplifying the situation. The most important of these are the Islamic army, Tanzim al- Qaida fi balad al-rafidein (the organisation of al-Qaida in the land of the two rivers); the Army of the Partisans of the Tradition of the Prophet; and the Army of Muhammad.

Increasingly, each of these groups dominates certain specific, clearly defined geographical areas. There are still pockets of confusion as to who has the upper hand where (one example is in the Diyala governorate near Baghdad) but these are now exceptions.

One area where the opposition is particularly settled is the al-Anbar governorate in north-western Iraq. Here Iraqi aid workers negotiate safe passages with opposition leaders via what is almost an institutional process. A formal procedure is in place for lorry drivers to pay an insurance fee that allows them to cross the governorate, as long as they are not supplying the enemy.

Its own 'business identity'

Each insurgent group has its own business identity, cultivated through sophisticated communications techniques that use both audiovisual and printed materials easily recognisable by their logos and standardised presentation. No group is ever short of things to say about its own aims, analysis of the conflict, military performance or tactical recommendations.

An analysis of recent communications production reveals another form of stabilisation. Where insurgent pamphlets, videos and other communications used to be full of exaggerations, ambiguities and controversies, they are now astonishingly consistent. In the course of 2005 all the opposition groups converged on a basic rhetoric of patriotism and Salafist (Sunni) religious fervour.

Debates that were initially highly charged, about the legitimacy of jihad in general and of methods in particular, ended in a consensus that may be superficial, but that everyone respects for now. For example, no one openly advocates decapitations anymore, let alone films them, as they used to do only a year ago.

Zarqawi is heavily criticised in private

Naturally, differences persist and there are tensions. Many sources, from aid workers to local journalists to Arab sympathisers, have been in contact with armed and report that Zarqawi is heavily criticised in private; he is accused of orchestrating the assassination of Shias. Some combatant groups will only claim responsibility for attacks on coalition forces, tacitly disapproving any operations that target civilians or even members of the Iraqi security forces.

United States marines recently noted, from their observations of events in the al-Anbar governorate, that there was a growing gulf between Iraqi insurgents and foreign groups. The marines observed that there were clashes without any marines being involved; they found foreign jihadists assassinated; and they observed that tribal groups were trying to reassert control over the areas where they lived. The marines concluded that the jihad agenda of foreign groups ran counter to the interests of the Iraqi insurgents.

This assessment formed the basis of the counter-insurrection strategy of the US, which aimed to wipe out the jihadists, considered irredeemable, while bringing the Iraqi resistance back on side via an extension of the political process.

Overall cohesion across the country

Yet though there certainly are signs of potentially explosive internal tensions, stronger forces are drawing opposition groups together. Local frictions cannot undermine a high level of overall cohesion across the country. The unity between the opposition groups may be little more than a front, but it is a front that no group has yet wanted to breach in any of its official statements. No group has publicly criticised any other.

On the contrary, they all appear to subscribe to a single, clear and apparently universally accepted strategy. And they all agree that drawing up a political programme would be premature and liable to cause disagreements.

As far as military action is concerned, the opposition groups may have different priorities, but they share the same informal strategic doctrine. It emerged from a process of debate and collaborative reflection that followed the second battle of Falluja in November 2004. Its guiding principle is that, given the superior firepower of the US, there is no point in trying to mount a sustained resistance in any one place.

Instead, opposition groups should constantly be moving into the gaps left by coalition and Iraqi forces as they move around, which they must, since no one can cover the whole country. This fluidity blocks any lasting progress on reconstruction. The armed opposition effectively counters the US slogan of "clear, hold and rebuild" with its own "withdraw, move on and rampage".

A civil and a dirty war

Above all, the idea that Iraq's is both a civil and a dirty war has encouraged unity among the armed opposition. Insurgent groups are all the more inclined to hang together when they perceive their enemy as an enemy within. They see Iraq's government as Shia, sectarian and in cahoots with, or subservient to, Iran.

Detailed documentation of the Shia militias' alleged crimes occupies a large part of the groups' propaganda output. A number of groups have explicitly named certain Iraqi army units as priority targets in recent months, and some have even announced the creation of special units devoted entirely to the struggle against the enemy within.

The opposition blames the threat of civil war on the perverse methods and posturings of a government that will do anything to achieve its aims; it would even commit genocide if it could only afford to. In the eyes of its opponents, it is perfectly capable of staging elaborate and bloody set-ups. For this reason the February bombing of the Shia mausoleum in Samarra only brought the armed opposition closer together. Far from weakening Zarqawi, always the main suspect in this kind of affair, the attack actually helped to improve his image, since no one believed he had done it.

Destroying one's own holy sanctuaries

All the major groups blamed the bombing on the Iranians and their local allies. Their propaganda carried extensive reports on the subsequent retaliatory attacks on Sunni Arabs, stressing the cynicism of an enemy that would destroy its own holy sanctuaries merely to justify a strike against the Sunnis.

A number of informal inquiries concluded that the attack on the mausoleum, which was carried out during the ceasefire by people in police uniform in a town held by Shia forces, could only have been the work of the Shia militia. Some also recalled that Zarqawi's people had held Samarra for some time before they lost it in late 2005, so surely they could have demolished the mausoleum when they pleased during that period.

The mere survival of the Tanzim al-Qaida illustrates just how complex and composite is Iraq's armed opposition. It gives the lie to the widespread view that al-Qaida in Iraq is a wholly imported body. According to received opinion, al-Qaida operatives in Iraq are all foreigners and the organisation works according to a hierarchical structure detached from the reality on the ground. This view turns out to be naive.

International networks of jihadism

For while al-Qaida does have an impressive ability to call on financial and human resources from international networks of jihadism, it could not possibly operate in Iraq without a solid local base. Organising suicide attacks is in fact a logistical feat. The volunteers have to be found and then transported. The explosives have to be manufactured, and the attacks require detailed information and tactical planning. Iraqis apparently perform most of these tasks.

Moreover, al-Qaida is particularly vulnerable to exposure, given its renown, its controversial image and the priority that the US places on catching its members. It could not survive long without some degree of acceptance, albeit passive, in its immediate surroundings. In the US's schematic, polarised version of the insurgent landscape, with its fierce, clear-cut opposition between terrorism and national liberation movements, the Tanzim al-Qaida would have disappeared by now.

Iraqifying Tanzim al-Qaida

Instead, it has mutated into a genuinely Iraqi phenomenon. This transformation is partly the result of a tactical decision, aimed at protecting the group by Iraqifiying its image. As such, it throws the eminently political nature of the opposition landscape into sharp relief. This political dimension often escapes attention because it is always tacit and opaque.

But the main groups in Iraq's armed opposition are constantly engaged in political manoeuvring, adjusting their ideological and strategic positions according to whoever holds the balance of power, what resources are available and who controls them.

Zarqawi, Tanzim al-Qaida's controversial leader, has gradually retreated from the limelight, leaving an official spokesman by the unmistakeably Iraqi name of Abu Maysara al Iraqi to take centre stage. Iraqi's name evokes in Arabic the ideas of comfort and ease, as well as that of his country, in sharp contrast to the connotations of a difficult struggle associated with the pseudonym Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Tanzim al-Qaida has also entrusted the leadership of its military operations to an Iraqi figure. In January the group merged with other renowned local groups, forming a council of concertation. This council elected the Iraqi sheikh Abdallah al-Baghdadi, hero of the second Falluja siege, as its emir.

Iraqis rising quickly through the ranks

The Iraqification of Tanzim al-Qaida is also the result of the determination of the US to wipe out the organisation. Concentrating a large proportion of its resources on tracking down al-Qaida operatives, the US has managed to arrest or kill a significant number of Tanzim's first generation of mostly foreign leaders, especially the Afghan Arabs, veterans of the Afghanistan jihad who led al-Qaida's early operations in Iraq. This has allowed Iraqis to rise quickly through the ranks.

In late 2005 the Nefa Foundation published a chart of the organisation, showing its leadership to be remarkably full of al-Iraqis, al-Baghdadis and other manifestly Iraqi names.

This new generation is a mixture of fervent young Iraqis and opportunistic vagrants. They are generally far less predictable and more violent than their predecessors. The US obsession with al-Qaida in Iraq has only made the organisation more dangerous, by accelerating its Iraqification and allowing it to put down deep local roots. Tanzim al-Qaida has shown that it can successfully adapt by finding local replacements for apparently heavy losses in a short time.

Tanzim's name, "al-Qaida in the land of the two rivers", is misleading. The Iraqi organisation has only distant relations with the al-Qaida network that was responsible for the attacks on the US in September 2001. It reveres Osama bin Laden as an icon, but never asks him for religious or practical advice. Bin Laden himself is careful to keep his own declarations vague and non-specific. Even the form of jihad Zarqawi has been preaching in Iraq constitutes a public repudiation of some of Bin Laden's most firmly held positions.

Bin Laden sees Shias as part of the Muslim umma

The Jordanian, for example, prioritises the struggle against the enemy within: for Bin Laden, the enemy without is far more important. Above all, Bin Laden does not see Shias as legitimate targets: they are part of the Muslim umma.

So it would be wrong to see the conflict in Iraq as a residual battle compounding al-Qaida's disarray. Iraq's is a conflict in its own right, and a pole of attraction diverting jihadists from other fronts such as Afghanistan, Chechnya or Palestine, and commanding the attention and the resources of radical Muslims the world over. It is a hive of activity whose energy and techniques also radiate out to other conflicts, influencing them in their turn. Tactical innovations such as suicide bombings tend to spread out from the Iraqi plains towards the Afghan mountains, and not the other way round.

The US persists in dividing the enemy into two separate categories. But events have shown that these two categories, international jihadist networks and local resistance, are capable of cooperating flexibly. They have resisted a counter-insurrectional campaign whose main aim was to exploit their divisions. Alarmingly, the prospect of civil war does not seem to have divided the armed opposition either.

Iraqi fighters could have blamed their foreign collaborators for deliberately fanning the flames of civil war, and broken away from them. They have not. On the contrary, the atmosphere has only reinforced the tactical unity of the armed opposition, which is rooted in the fault lines running through Iraqi society, fault lines that US policy has only served to deepen.

Mathieu Guidère, Peter Harling

© International Crisis Group 2006

This article was previously published in Le Monde Diplomatique.

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