Are Sadr and al-Qaeda Teaming Up in Iraq?
Reports of serious negotiations taking place between Sadr's movement and al-Qaeda were followed by suspiciously coordinated threats from both groups.
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A few days ago, there were two suspiciously coordinated statements emerging from Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr made open-war threats followed immediately by a similar threat from al-Qaeda.
As they say, there is usually no smoke without fire.
Respected Iraqi writer and lawyer Suleiman Hakim (a prominent writer regularly published on the leading Iraqi politics and culture website Kitabat ) reported on April 11 — more than a week before Sadr and Abu Ayyub made their threats — about serious negotiations taking place between Sadr’s movement and a leader of the Islamic army group.
The meetings, Hakim believes, are taking place in Syria and Lebanon and are sponsored by a special Syrian security apparatus specialized in Iraqi affairs.
Sheik Zergani [Sadr’s representative in Lebanon] and Sadr’s representative in Syria met in the Lebanese capital last March with Mr. Khalil Jumeily [a leader of the Islamic army] and after preliminary discussions in which they exchanged their views about the situation in Iraq and their plans for overthrowing the existing order and reviewing the positions of domestic and regional allies, they decided to resume the discussions in Damascus so that once they reach specific agreements, one certain Syrian security apparatus in charge of Iraqi issues would witness and sponsor those agreements … the relationships between Sadr movement and the Islamic army are not outside the frame of the Iran-Syria alliance. And so these relationships are being restored after being severed in the aftermath of the holy shrines bombings in 2006 and the massacres committed by Mahdi army indiscriminately against Sunni Iraqis. The main requirement of the new agreement is that the Islamic army launch wide operations against American and government targets and to take control of cities and towns near the army’s strongholds, in addition to the provision of assistance and backup to the Mahdi army once Muqtada unfreezes the army and gives the green light for starting the battle against the authority of the Shia coalition. … [The objective is] to create a new situation on the ground that forces the American forces to negotiate a new formula for power and authority in Iraq
The fact that this story was written almost days before both al-Qaeda leaders sent in a wave of audio recordings and Muqtada threatened open war gives them increased credibility.
True, the idea of the Islamic army cooperating with Mahdi army sounds as peculiar as it always has. Not because of the sectarian difference, because the two groups did cooperate and sent reinforcements to each other back in 2004 during the battles of Fallujah and Najaf.
It’s because by considering a new joint venture with Sadr the Islamic army is making two huge mistakes. It’s true that the leaders of the group are likely not politically savvy and driven by emotion, but it still should be easy for them to understand that this would be a blunder.
Why?
First, by siding with Sadr they’d be obviously choosing a losing partner in the long run, and the bet on quick gains through a nationwide shock offensive is too much of a longshot stretch, with highly unpredictable outcome.
Second, and most important, is that former Sunni insurgent groups (the Islamic army being one of the most prominent), by turning against al-Qaeda, have already created for themselves better bargaining positions when it comes to negotiating the future distribution of power in the country with the government or the U.S.
It is close to impossible to truly gauge what the leaders of these groups are thinking because we still don’t have enough knowledge about the subtleties that underlie the relationships between the different factions within the Sunni insurgency in general, and the Islamic army in particular.
But we Iraqis need to stay alert, for something nasty might be brewing for us in Damascus.
Omar Fadhil is PJM Baghdad editor. His own blog is Iraq The Model.
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16 Comments
njcommuter:We also need to understand what they hope to achieve. An action that seems pointless in terms of goal X may make perfect sense in terms of goal Y.
Apr 28, 2008 - 3:48 am Mark E:The timing did seem a little odd that they were both making threats the same day and making similar demands.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:55 am Batman:I have no doubt that the common objective is to orchestrate enough violence in the run-up to U.S. elections to convince voters to back a pullout. Its more important than ever to keep them in disarray through the end of this year.
Apr 28, 2008 - 10:18 am Anthony (Los Angeles):Yet another good reason why Maliki should keep up the pressure on Mookie and his Mahdi Army. Give them no time to regroup and recover from the beating they’ve taken.
Apr 28, 2008 - 11:37 am anthem boy:its kinda sucks to say this, but dont give them (sadr/ islamic army) any ideas. i.m sure they are reading this as well.
Apr 28, 2008 - 2:31 pm M.E.:The negotiations between Muqtada al-Sadr and al-Qaeda remind of a classical story where two rival Mafia gangs make a pact and violate it immediately afterwards. But in this specific case al-Sadr is not a part to negotiate, because, as Michael Ledeen writes “all this attention to Moqtadah is at odds with his actual behaviour: he long since abandoned the battlefield. Missing from Iraq for many months, he recently resurfaced with the surprising announcement that he had gone to Iran to devote himself to religious. The Iranians had fired him, and they restructured the Mahdi Army into smaller, more autonomous groups. The recent violence came from the new units, headed by Iranian officers, agents, and recruits who, Tehran hoped, are not well known to Coalition and Iraqi military intelligence”. It is logical that Syrian fascists and Iranian mullahs are making all possible efforts to create chaos in Iraq: democratic Iraq means for them the end of their hateful dictatorships. On the other part, chaos is the natural state for this kind of regimes. Do remember the former Soviet Union that promoted and financed the wars and the terrorist guerrillas in all points of the World. The communist rulers wasted the national resources in adverse activities bringing to every country, they arrived, only misery and destruction. So the negotiations between Al-Sadr and Abu Ayyub are clear indications of the extreme weakness of these two terrorist groups (if not of complete impotence). The value of their “threats” is the same of that of two animals which menace one another with terrible cries in hope that other will escape without fighting.
Apr 28, 2008 - 2:41 pm DB:What this puts me in mind of is the Tet Offensive of early 1968. That strategy, while not militarily successful, became a rallying cry for those in the US who didn’t believe there was “light at the end of the tunnel,” as Westmorland thought. Many Americans began to see the North Vietnamese not as a nearly beaten foe, but as an army capable of organization and logistics. In that sense, the Tet Offensive suceeded politically by fomenting dissent in the US. This despite the fact that the North was depleted by the simultaneous attacks and probably couldn’t have repeated them.
It’s possible that the shock of an organized offensive by al-Sadr and al-Qaeda in Iraq would call for more cries for US withdrawal, even if that offensive isn’t ultimately successful. It remains to be seen if they coordinate their efforts and if we can learn from the lessons of Tet.
Apr 28, 2008 - 7:07 pm Dave:Does this make the present fights in Basra and Baghdad ‘pre-emptive strikes’?
Apr 29, 2008 - 5:34 am M.E.:To DB:
The Tet Offensive is a very good historical example. The best analysis of the events is that of Victor D. Hanson in “Carnage and Culture”. Hanson says in an article about Iraqi war (ad sensum): the situation in Iraq is completely different, but the cries of the war critics are the same. Only idiocy and malice don’t change. One can ask: why does one long for a defeat of his country while it fights against an absolutely evil force like terrorism? And why is one ready to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of human beings to satisfy his egoistic political ambitions? The US withdrawal from Iraq would mean an immense carnage of civil population like in Vietnam. So the US has responsibility for this country. That is not only a military or political question but above all moral.
Apr 29, 2008 - 7:59 am Chivalrous1_us:It is necessary not to forget also that the Islamic terrorists were disciples of our European extremists and they remain their most ardent supporters. (I don’t want to discuss here about “Islamic roots” of terrorism: it is another topic.) That is normal for the radicals, but the supporters of terrorists like Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Barak Obama represent an absolutely pathological case. In any case the fancies of these perverse individuals won’t change the course of History. Philip II said after the defeat of the Spanish Armada: “I sent my ships to fight against the English, not against the elements”. To fight against the History is like to fight against the elements.
I hope they’re teaming up.
Apr 30, 2008 - 3:58 am JOHN:Easier to kill them both then. I’m not a dolt, I know they’re amorphous entities, but hey.
Operationally, if they have indeed merged, then a central basis of coordination hence a single “head” to lop off, to borrow their methodological term.
DB
May 1, 2008 - 11:48 am J.J. Sefton:I agree, Tet is the perfect example. The North Vietnamese army was on the verge of collapse after Tet but we (THE DEMOCRATES) decided to pull out. The South Vietnamese army was able to hold their own until the Democratic Congress pulled the funds and they fell. Since then that scenario has been taught from Baghdad to Tehran to Moscow. We have to win this. If we want to call ourselves a SUPERPOWER then we better act like one.
Please, I’m begging you. Stop calling him “Mookie.” It demeans Mookie Wilson and is just plain idiotic.
As for the election, how about a surprise Surge Redux? Just a thought.
May 1, 2008 - 12:01 pm