The Islamic State of Iraq: The Newest Incarnation of Al-Qaeda in Iraq

The war has been going pretty dismally for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The comfortable rise in sectarian violence that threatened to drive the Americans out of the country in 2006 has been cut dramatically, and most of their leadership has been utterly decimated, to say nothing of the break down in communication caused by the more direct control taken by the terrorist leaders still in hiding in Afghanistan. The chaos of inter-faction fighting was a breeding ground for radicalism, decentralization, and most importantly, the morale-devastating attacks on civilians and military personnel that went almost without response - Iraq became a proverbial playground for al-Qaeda.

The ultimate objective, of course, was to kill American willpower to stay in the fighting, thus forcing the troops to come home, and in turn leave the nation bare and vulnerable to radical pressure - thus capitulating the Maliki government and allowing the formation of a kind of Neo-Taliban under Emir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The plan, as is seen now, came to a grinding halt. The death of Zarqawi clearly, and severely, hindered the terrorist faction's ability to remain cohesive, and as time went on, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri's incompetence was laid bare for all to see, those organizations that made up the crux of the Iraqi insurgency slowly turned on them, until the current states of affairs came to be.

Ever since the insurgency began in 2003, among the most feared were those surrounding al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, who did not see this as a nationalist battle against American invaders of the Iraqi homeland, but a key chance to rebuild Iraq in the image of the Afghani Sharia. The concept was nothing new to Osama bin-Laden - following the wake of the Afghan-Soviet War, he easily helped topple the Afghani Nationals in the ensuing power gap, and with the Pakistani ISI nowhere in sight, primarily contenting itself with the driving out of the Communist Russians, the Taliban dominated the nation.

The situation in Iraq was a bit more grim for the hard line Islamic militant faction however - the American forces have since shown no signs of withdrawal, and their constant pressure has put a strain on their ability to operate. Consistently throughout the conflict, al-Qaeda in Iraq has failed to secure any victories against American forces in direct confrontations, succeeding only in attacking from afar using primarily IEDs and sniper attacks. Even the sniper attacks, however, quickly fell to the wayside as an American medic managed to detain their chief sharpshooter, who named himself Jubal, after a failed attempt to kill him.

Perhaps most ironically, after successfully hitting Jubal in a firefight, the medic proceeded to administer aid to the terrorist.

In 2006, recognizing these crippling failures and an inability to secure any of its objectives, the Mujahideen Shura Council was formed, an umbrella group of the various Sunni insurgent factions that fundamentally swore loyalty to the al-Qaeda in Iraq cause. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was seen as the authoritative figurehead of the council, though it was announced to be disbanded not long after the terrorist leader's death. The successful battles of Fallujah, likewise, continued to drive the Shura Council further and further from a political base - until it proved too costly to even continue the facade of its existence.

Finally entered the newest incarnation, the Islamic State of Iraq, an organization that hoped to establish what it called an "Islamic Cabinet", with the mythical figure Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi at its head. Several witnesses and prisoners have testified that al-Baghdadi doesn't actually exist at all - that he is a figurehead concocted to try to generate domestic support for the largely foreign fighting force that is al-Qaeda in Iraq, especially with the recent revolutions against their rule across Anbar, Northern Iraq, and Diyala.

The Islamic State in Iraq is less autonomous than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawid and Jihad, which transformed into the terrorist faction of al-Qaeda we recognize today. Reporting directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin-Laden back in Afghanistan, and constantly pressured on all fronts by the Baghdad Security Plan, what was once al-Qaeda in Iraq shows severe signs of strain, but acts fortuitously as a common enemy that unites the various, formerly splintered factions of Iraq and the United States.

Sources:

Wikipedia - Mujahideen Shura Council
Anti-Defamation League - Jihadist Video Announces "Islamic State of Iraq"
Associated Content - Islamic State of Iraq's War Minister Reported Dead
Global Security - Islamic State of Iraq
Jamestown Global Security Analysis
Financial Times - Call for Sunni State in Iraq
Cordover Blog - Al-Qaeda in Iraq Threatens War on Iran
MSNBC Worldblog
United States Central Command
SITE Institute