Order Code RL32217
Iraq and Al Qaeda
Updated April 28, 2008
Kenneth Katzman
Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Iraq and Al Qaeda
Summary
In explaining the decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein from power,
the Administration asserted, among other justifications, that the regime of Saddam
Hussein had a working relationship with the Al Qaeda organization. The
Administration stated that the relationship dated to the early 1990s, and was based
on a common interest in confronting the United States. The Administration
assertions were derived from U.S. intelligence showing a pattern of contacts with Al
Qaeda when its key founder, Osama bin Laden, was based in Sudan in the early to
mid-1990s and continuing after he relocated to Afghanistan in 1996.
Critics maintain that subsequent research demonstrates that the relationship, if
it existed, was not “operational,” and that no hard data has come to light indicating
the two entities conducted any joint terrorist attacks. Some major hallmarks of a
consistent relationship were absent, and several experts outside and within the U.S.
government believe that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda were sporadic, unclear,
or subject to alternate explanations.
Another pillar of the Administration argument, which has applications for the
current U.S. effort to stabilize Iraq, rested on reports of contacts between Baghdad
and an Islamist Al Qaeda affiliate group, called Ansar al-Islam, based in northern Iraq
in the late 1990s. Although the connections between Ansar al-Islam and Saddam
Hussein’s regime were subject to debate, the organization evolved into what is now
known as Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQ-I). AQ-I has been a numerically small but
operationally major component of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency that frustrated U.S.
efforts to stabilize Iraq. Since mid-2007, in part facilitated by combat conducted by
additional U.S. forces sent to Iraq as part of a “troop surge,” the U.S. military has had
some success exploiting differences between AQ-I and Iraqi Sunni political, tribal,
and insurgent leaders. These successes, which in some cases have resulted in the
virtual expulsion of AQ-I from many of its sanctuaries particularly in Baghdad and
in Anbar Province, have weakened AQ-I “substantially,” according to the April 8-9,
2008 congressional testimony of General David Petraeus, commanding general of
U.S. -led forces in Iraq. However, General Petraeus said that AQ-I still poses a
significant threat, particularly in northern Iraq where battles against it continue.
There have been indications that AQ-I is attempting to conduct activities
outside Iraq in a process that some describe as “spillover” from Iraq into the broader
Middle East. However, another interpretation is that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has
stimulated radical activities outside Iraq that are sympathetic to Al Qaeda. Analysis
of the broader implications of AQ-I might depend on the degree to which AQ-I is in
contact with the remaining structures of the Al Qaeda organization that organized the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The Al Qaeda - AQ-I relationship
remains unclear and a subject of debate among experts.
This report will be updated as warranted by developments. See also: CRS
Report RL31339: Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, by Kenneth
Katzman.
Contents
Background on Saddam - Al Qaeda Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Major Themes in the Administration Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Links in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Ansar al-Islam Presence in Northern Iraq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The September 11, 2001, Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Al Qaeda and the Iraq Insurgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
AQ-I Strategy and Role in the Insurgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
AQ-I Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2007 Iraqi Sunni “Awakening” Movement/U.S. Operations and
“Troop Surge” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The “Awakening” and “Salvation” Rebellions Against AQ-I . . . . . . . 13
Strategy to Maintain Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Estimated Numbers of Foreign Fighters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Linkages to Al Qaeda Central Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Iraq and Al Qaeda
Part of the debate over the Bush Administration decision to use military action
to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein centers on whether or not that regime
was allied with Al Qaeda. In building an argument that the United States needed to
oust Saddam Hussein militarily, the Administration asserted that Iraq constituted a
gathering threat to the United States because it continued to develop weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) that it could potentially transfer to international terrorist
groups, including Al Qaeda, with which Iraq was allied. This combination produced
the possibility of a catastrophic attack on the United States, according to the
Administration.
The first pillar of the Administration argument for ousting Saddam Hussein —
its continued active development of WMD — has been researched extensively. After
the fall of the regime in April 2003, U.S. forces and intelligence officers in an “Iraq
Survey Group” (ISG) searched Iraq for evidence of WMD stockpiles. A
“comprehensive” September 2004 report of the Survey Group, known as the
“Duelfer report,”1 said that the ISG found no WMD stockpiles or production but said
that there was evidence that the regime retained the intention to reconstitute WMD
programs in the future. The formal U.S.-led WMD search ended December 2004,2
although U.S. forces have found some chemical weapons caches left over from the
Iran-Iraq war.3 The UNMOVIC work remained formally active until U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1762 terminated it on June 29, 2007.
The second pillar of the Administration argument — that Saddam Hussein’s
regime had links to Al Qaeda — is relevant not only to assess justification for the
invasion decision but also because an Al Qaeda affiliate (Al Qaeda in Iraq, or AQ-I)
became a key component of the post-Saddam insurgency among Sunni Arabs in Iraq.
The Administration has maintained that the Al Qaeda presence in Iraq, fighting
alongside Iraqi insurgents from the ousted ruling Baath Party, members of former
regime security forces, and other disaffected Iraqi Sunni Arabs, demonstrates that
there were pre-war linkages. On the other hand, most experts believe that Al Qaeda
and other foreign fighters entered Sunni-inhabited central Iraq after the fall of
Saddam Hussein, from the Kurdish controlled north and from other Middle Eastern
countries. These foreign fighters are motivated by an anti-U.S. ideology and a target
1 Duelfer report text is at [http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/cia93004wmdrpt.html].
The report is named for Charles Duelfer, the last head of the WMD search as part of the Iraq
Survey Group. The first such head was Dr. David Kay.
2 For analysis of the former regime’s WMD and other abuses, see CRS Report RL32379,
Iraq: Former Regime Weapons Programs, Human Rights Violations, and U.S. Policy, by
Kenneth Katzman.
3 Pincus, Walter. “Munitions Found in Iraq Renew Debate.” Washington Post, July 1, 2006.
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of opportunity provided by the presence of U.S. forces there, rather than longstanding
ties to the former Iraqi regime, according to this view.
Background on Saddam - Al Qaeda Links
On March 17, 2003, in a speech announcing a 48-hour deadline for Saddam
Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq in order to avoid war, President Bush said:
...the [Iraqi] regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has
a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained, and harbored
terrorists, including operatives of Al Qaeda.”4
The Administration argument for an Iraq-Al Qaeda linkage had a few major
themes: (1) that there were contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda in
Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan dating from the early 1990s, including Iraq’s
assistance to Al Qaeda in deployment of chemical weapons; (2) that an Islamist
faction called Ansar al-Islam (The Partisans of Islam) in northern Iraq, had ties to
Iraq’s regime; and (3) that Iraq might have been involved in the September 11, 2001
plot itself. Of these themes, the September 11 allegations are the most widely
disputed by outside experts and by some officials within the Administration itself.
Some Administration officials, including President Bush, have virtually ruled out
Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks while others, including Vice President
Cheney, have maintained that issue is still open.5
Secretary of State Powell presented the Administration view in greater public
detail than any other official when he briefed the United Nations Security Council on
Iraq on February 5, 2003, although most of that presentation was devoted to Iraq’s
alleged violations of U.N. requirements that it dismantle its weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) programs. According to the presentation:6
Iraq and terrorism go back decades.... But what I want to bring to your attention
today is the potentially more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda
terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and
modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed
by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden
and his Al Qaeda lieutenants. Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin
Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaeda source tells us that Saddam and bin
Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaeda would no longer support
activities against Baghdad.... We know members of both organizations met
repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early
1990s.... Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan
[after bin Laden moved there in mid-1996].... From the late 1990s until 2001, the
Iraqi embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the Al Qaeda organization
4 Transcript: Bush Gives Saddam Hussein and Sons 48 Hours to Leave Iraq. Department of
State, Washington File. March 17, 2003.
5 Priest, Dana and Glenn Kessler. “Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney.” Washington Post,
September 29, 2003.
6 Secretary of State Addresses the U.N. Security Council. Transcript, February 5, 2003.
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... Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and Al Qaeda together, enough
so Al Qaeda could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how
to forge documents, and enough so that Al Qaeda could turn to Iraq for help in
acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction.
Secretary Powell did not include in his February 5, 2003, briefing the assertion
that Iraq was involved in the September 11 plot. Some analysts suggest the omission
indicates a lack of consensus within the Administration on the strength of that
evidence. In a January 2004 press interview, Secretary Powell said that his U.N.
briefing had been meticulously prepared and reviewed, saying “Anything that we did
not feel was solid and multi-sourced, we did not use in that speech.”7 Additional
details of the Administration’s argument, as well as criticisms, are discussed below.
Post-Saddam analysis of the issue has tended to refute the Administration
argument on Saddam-Al Qaeda linkages, although this issue is still debated. The
report of the 9/11 Commission found no evidence of a “collaborative operational
linkage” between Iraq and Al Qaeda.8 In his book “At the Center of the Storm” in
May 2007 (Harper Collins Press, pp. 341-358), former CIA Director George Tenet
indicated that the CIA view was that contacts between Saddam’s regime and Al
Qaeda were likely for the purpose of taking the measure of each other or take
advantage of each other, rather than collaborating. Others note, however, that some
of Tenet’s pre-war testimony before Congress was in line with the prevailing
Administration view on this question, contrasting with the views in his book. In
March 2008, a study by the Institute for Defense Analyses, written for the U.S. Joint
Forces Command, and based on 600,000 documents captured in post-Saddam Iraq,
found that Iraq during the early to mid-1990s actively supported Egyptian Islamic
Jihad, which in 1998 formally merged with Al Qaeda, but that the documents do not
reveal “direct coordination and assistance between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al
Qaeda.”9
Major Themes in the Administration Argument
Some of the intelligence information that the Bush Administration relied on to
judge linkages between Iraq and Al Qaeda was publicized not only in Secretary of
State Powell’s February 5, 2003, briefing to the U.N. Security Council, but also, and
in more detail, in an article in The Weekly Standard.10 Vice President Cheney has
been quoted as saying the article represents the “best source of [open] information”
on the issue.11 The article contains excerpts from a memorandum, dated October 27,
7 Powell Affirms Confidence in Decision to Wage Iraq War. U.S. Department of State,
Washington File. January 8, 2004.
8 9/11 Commission Report, p. 66.
9 Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi
Documents. [http://www.fas.orga/irp/eprint/iraqi/index.html]
10 Hayes, Stephen. “Case Closed.” The Weekly Standard, November 24, 2003. Online at
[http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp]
11 Milbank, Dana. “Bush Hails Al Qaeda Arrest in Iraq; President Defends U.S.
(continued...)
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2003, from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith to Senators Pat
Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the then chairman and vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee. The memorandum reportedly was based on research and
analysis of intelligence and other information by the “Office of Special Plans,” an
Iraq policy planning unit within the Department of Defense set up in early 2002 but
disbanded in the fall of 2002. The following sections analyze details of the major
themes in the Administration argument.
Links in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The “DOD memorandum,”
as well as other accounts,12 include assertions that Iraqi intelligence developed a
relationship with Al Qaeda in the early 1990s, brokered by the Islamist leaders of
Sudan. At the time, Osama bin Laden was in Sudan. He remained there until Sudan
expelled him in mid-1996, after which he went to Afghanistan. According to the
purported memo, the Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship included an agreement by Al Qaeda
not to seek to undermine Saddam’s regime, and for Iraq to provide Al Qaeda with
conventional weapons and WMD. The Administration view is that Iraq was highly
isolated in the Arab world in the early 1990s, just after its invasion of Kuwait in
August 1990, and that it might have sought a relationship with Al Qaeda as a means
of gaining leverage over the United States and a common enemy, the regime of Saudi
Arabia. From this perspective, the relationship served the interests of both, even
though Saddam was a secular leader while Al Qaeda sought to replace regional
secular leaders with Islamic states.
The purported DOD memorandum includes names and approximate dates on
which Iraqi intelligence officers visited bin Laden’s camp outside Khartoum and
discussions of cooperation in manufacturing explosive devices. It reportedly
discusses subsequent meetings between Iraqi intelligence officers and bin Laden and
his aides in Afghanistan and Pakistan, continuing until at least the late 1990s. The
memorandum cites intelligence reports that Al Qaeda operatives were instructed to
travel to Iraq to obtain training in the making and deployment of chemical weapons.
Secretary of State Powell, in his February 5, 2003, U.N. briefing, citing an Al Qaeda
operative captured in Afghanistan, stated that Iraq had received Al Qaeda operatives
“several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poison gases.”
According to press accounts, some Administration evaluations of the available
intelligence, including a reported draft national intelligence estimate (NIE) circulated
in October 2002, interpreted the information as inconclusive, and as evidence of
sporadic but not necessarily ongoing or high-level contacts between Iraq and Al
Qaeda.13 Some CIA experts reportedly asserted that the ideological differences
11 (...continued)
Intelligence.” Washington Post, January 27, 2004.
12 Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Unknown. The CIA and the Pentagon take Another Look at Al
Qaeda and Iraq.” The New Yorker, February 10, 2003.
13 Pincus, Walter. “Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection.” Washington Post,
June 22, 2003.
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between Iraq and Al Qaeda were too large to be bridged permanently.14 For example,
bin Laden reportedly sought to raise an Islamic army to fight to expel Iraqi troops
from Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion in August 1990, suggesting that bin Laden
might have viewed Iraq as an enemy rather than an ally. According to some accounts,
the Saudi royal family rebuffed bin Laden’s idea as unworkable, deciding instead to
invite in U.S. forces to combat the Iraqi invasion. The rebuff prompted an open split
between bin Laden and the Saudi leadership, and bin Laden left the Kingdom for
Sudan in 1991.15 Ideological differences between Iraq and Al Qaeda were evident in
a February 12, 2003, bin Laden statement referring to Saddam Hussein’s regime —
dominated by his secular Arab nationalist Baath Party — as “socialist and infidel,”
although the statement also gave some support to the Administration argument when
bin Laden exhorted the Iraqi people to resist impending U.S. military action.16
As noted above, Iraq had an embassy in Pakistan that the Administration asserts
was its link to the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. However, skeptics of a Saddam-Al
Qaeda link note that Iraq did not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government
of Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power during 1996-2001. It was during the
period of Taliban rule that Al Qaeda enjoyed safehaven in Afghanistan. Of the 12 Al
Qaeda leaders identified by the U.S. government in 2003 as either “executive
leaders” or “senior planners and coordinators,” none was an Iraqi national.17 This
suggests that the Iraqi nationals did not have the sanction of Saddam Hussein to join
Al Qaeda when he was in power. An alternate explanation is that very few Iraqis had
the opportunity to join Al Qaeda during its key formative years - the years of the anti-
Soviet “jihad” in Afghanistan (1979-1989). Young Iraqis who might have been
attracted to volunteer in Afghanistan were serving in Iraqi units during the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq war, and were not available to participate in regional causes.
Ansar al-Islam Presence in Northern Iraq. Another major theme in the
Administration assertions was the presence in Iraq of a group called Ansar al-Islam
(Partisans of Islam). This aspect of the Administration’s argument factored
prominently in Secretary of State Powell’s U.N. presentation, and is the most directly
relevant to analysis of the Al Qaeda presence in Iraq today. Ansar al-Islam is
considered the forerunner of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQ-I).
Ansar al-Islam formed in 1998 as a breakaway faction of Islamist Kurds,
splitting off from a group, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan (IMIK). Both
Ansar and the IMIK were initially composed almost exclusively of Kurds. U.S.
concerns about Ansar grew following the U.S. defeat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan in late 2001, when some Al Qaeda activists, mostly Arabs, fled to Iraq
14 Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Unknown. The CIA and the Pentagon Take Another Look at Al
Qaeda and Iraq.” The New Yorker, February 10, 2003.
15 Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda. New York, Columbia University Press, 2002. Pp. 27-
29.
16 Text of an audio message purported to be from Osama bin Laden. BBC News, February
12, 2003.
17 “Al Qaeda High Value Targets.” Defense Intelligence Agency chart (unclassified).
September 12, 2003.
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and associated there with the Ansar movement. At the peak, about 600 Arab fighters
lived in the Ansar al-Islam enclave, near the town of Khurmal.18 Ansar fighters
clashed with Kurdish fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of
the two mainstream Iraqi Kurdish parties, around Halabja in December 2002. Ansar
gunmen were allegedly responsible for an assassination attempt against PUK “prime
minister” of the Kurdish region Barham Salih (now a deputy Prime Minister of Iraq)
in April 2002.
The leader of the Arab contingent within Ansar al-Islam was Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi, an Arab of Jordanian origin who reputedly fought in Afghanistan. Although
more recent assessments indicate Zarqawi commanded Arab volunteers in
Afghanistan separate from those recruited by bin Laden, Zarqawi was linked to
purported Al Qaeda plots in the 1990s and early 2000s. He allegedly was behind
foiled bombings in Jordan during the December 1999 millennium celebration, to the
assassination in Jordan of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley (2002), and to reported
attempts in 2002 to spread chemical agents in Russia, Western Europe, and the
United States.19
In explaining why the United States needed to confront Saddam Hussein’s
regime militarily, U.S. officials maintained that Baghdad was connected to Ansar al-
Islam. In his U.N. presentation, Secretary of State Powell said:
Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda
lieutenants.... Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical
organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq.... Zarqawi’s
activities are not confined to this small corner of northeastern Iraq. He traveled
to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital for two
months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this stay, nearly two
dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations
there.... From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network in the
Middle East and beyond.
However, some accounts question the extent of links, if any, between Baghdad
and Ansar al-Islam. Baghdad did not control northern Iraq even before Operation
Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and it is questionable whether Zarqawi, were he tied closely to
Saddam Hussein’s regime, would have located his group in territory controlled by
Saddam’s Kurdish opponents.20 The Administration view on this point is that
Saddam saw Ansar as a means of pressuring Saddam Hussein’s Kurdish opponents
in northern Iraq.
The September 11, 2001, Plot. The reputed DOD memorandum reportedly
includes allegations of contacts between lead September 11 hijacker Mohammad Atta
18 Chivers, C.J. Repulsing Attack By Islamic Militants, “Iraqi Kurds Tell of Atrocities.” New
York Times, December 6, 2002.
19 U.S. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002. April 2003. p. 79.
20 “U.S. Uncertain About Northern Iraq Group’s Link to Al Qaida.” Dow Jones Newswire,
March 18, 2002.
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and Iraq intelligence, including as many as four meetings between Atta and Iraq’s
intelligence chief in Prague, Ahmad Samir al-Ani. The DOD memo says that al-Ani
agreed to provide Atta with funds at one of the meetings. The memo asserts that the
CIA confirmed two Atta visits to Prague — October 26, 1999, and April 9, 2001 —
but did not confirm that he met with Iraqi intelligence during those visits. The DOD
memo reportedly also contains reports indicating that Iraqi intelligence officers
attended or facilitated meetings with Al Qaeda operatives in southeast Asia (Kuala
Lumpur) in early 2000. In the course of these meetings, the Al Qaeda activists were
said to be planning the October 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole docked in Aden,
Yemen, and possibly the September 11 plot as well.
As noted above, Secretary of State Powell reportedly considered the
information too uncertain to include in his February 5, 2003, briefing on Iraq to the
U.N. Security Council.21 President Bush did not mention this allegation in his January
29, 2003, State of the Union message, delivered one week before the Powell
presentation to the U.N. Security Council. President Bush said on September 16,
2003, that there was no evidence Saddam Hussein’s regime was involved in the
September 11 plot; he made the statement in response to a journalist’s question about
statements a few days earlier by Vice President Cheney suggesting that the issue of
Iraq’s complicity in September 11 is still open.22
There is dispute within Czech intelligence that provided the information on the
meetings, that the Iraq-Atta discussions took place at all, particularly the April 2001
meeting. In November 2001, Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said that Atta
and al-Ani had met, but Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman subsequently told U.S.
officials that the two had discussed an attack aimed at silencing anti-Saddam
broadcasts from Prague.23 Since 1998, Prague has been the headquarters of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded radio service that was highly critical of
Saddam Hussein’s regime. In December 2001, Czech President Vaclav Havel said
that there was a “70% chance” the meeting took place. The U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) eventually concluded,
based on records of Atta’s movements within the United States in April 2001, that
the meeting probably did not take place and that there was no hard evidence of Iraqi
regime involvement in the September 11 attacks.24 Some press reports say the FBI
is more confident than is the CIA in the judgment that the April 2001 meeting did not
21 Priest, Dana and Glenn Kessler. “Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney.” Washington Post,
September 29, 2003.
22 Hosenball, Mark, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas. Cheney’s Long Path to War.
Newsweek, November 17, 2003.
23 Priest, Dana and Glenn Kessler. “Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney.” Washington Post,
September 29, 2003.
24 Risen, James. “Iraqi Agent Denies He Met 9/11 Hijacker in Prague Before Attacks on the
U.S.” New York Times, December 13, 2003.
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occur.25 Al Ani himself, captured by U.S. forces in 2003, reportedly denied to U.S.
interrogators that the meeting ever happened.26
Al Qaeda and the Iraq Insurgency
Whether or not Al Qaeda leaders and Saddam Hussein had a relationship, a
major issue facing the United States is the degree to which Al Qaeda elements are
threatening the U.S. effort to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Commenting on the Iraq
insurgency in its early stages, President Bush said in a speech on September 8, 2003,
that “We have carried the fight to the enemy.... We are rolling back the terrorist
threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its
power.”27 In his January 20, 2004, State of the Union message, President Bush said,
“These killers [Iraq insurgents], joined by foreign terrorists, are a serious, continuing
danger.”28 Similar statements followed in subsequent years as the Administration
sought to assert that Iraq had become the “central front” in the broader post-
September 11 “war on terrorism,” and that it is preferable to combat Al Qaeda in Iraq
rather than allow it to congregate elsewhere in the region and hatch plots inside the
United States itself.29 In a January 10, 2007, major speech announcing the U.S.
“troop surge,” President Bush made similar points:
... we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still
active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make
Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda
document describes the terrorists’ plan to infiltrate and seize control of the
province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq’s
democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the
United States at home and abroad.
In a July 24, 2007, speech specifically on the issue, 30 President Bush said:
... Our troops are....opposing ruthless enemies, and no enemy is more ruthless in
Iraq than al Qaeda. They send suicide bombers into crowded markets; they
behead innocent captives and they murder American troops. They want to bring
down Iraq’s democracy so they can use that nation as a terrorist safe haven for
attacks against our country....
25 Gertz, Bill. “September 11 Report Alludes to Iraq-Al Qaeda Meeting.” Washington Times,
July 30, 2003.
26 Risen, James. “Iraqi Agent Denies He Met 9/11 Hijacker in Prague Before Attacks on
U.S.” New York Times, December 13, 2003.
27 Ibid.
28 State of the Union Message by President Bush. January 20, 2004. Text contained in New
York Times, January 21, 2004.
29 Miller, Greg. Iraq-Terrorism Link Continues to Be Problematic. Los Angeles Times,
September 9, 2003.
3 0 President Bush Discusses War on Terror in South Carolina.
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/print/20070724-3.html].
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Critics of this view maintain that Al Qaeda or pro-Al Qaeda elements were
motivated by the U.S. invasion to enter Iraq to fight the United States there.
According to this argument, the U.S. presence in Iraq has generated new Al Qaeda
followers — both inside and outside Iraq — who might not have become active
against the United States had the war against Iraq not occurred. This view draws
some support from the unclassified “key judgments” of a July 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that said:
...we assess that [Al Qaeda central leadership’s] association with AQ-I helps Al
Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and
to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for homeland attacks.31
Other critics maintain that the Administration has emphasized an “Al Qaeda”
component of the insurgency as a means of bolstering U.S. public support for the war
effort in Iraq. According to this view, the Administration has repeatedly attempted
to link in the public consciousness the Iraq war to the September 11 attacks in part
because of consistent public support for a military component of the overall war on
terrorism.
AQ-I Strategy and Role in the Insurgency
In analyzing the debate over Al Qaeda involvement in Iraq, a major question is
the degree to which AQ-I has driven the insurgency against U.S. forces and the
government of Iraq. Few dispute that there has been, from almost the inception of
the insurgency in mid-2003, a “foreign fighter” component, but the debate over the
relative contribution of the foreign fighters is as old as the insurgency itself. In
November 2003, early in the insurgency, one senior U.S. commander in Iraq (82nd
Airborne Division commander Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack) said, in response to
reports that foreign fighters were key to the insurgency: “I want to underscore that
most of the attacks on our forces are by former regime loyalists and other Iraqis, not
foreign forces.”32 At that time, other commanders emphasized the foreign fighter
role in the insurgency by asserting that the high profile suicide bombings that
occurred were having a significant impact in undermining U.S. and international
confidence in the U.S. ability to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. As examples of such
attacks that caused doubt in the U.S. ability to stabilize Iraq, commanders cited the
August 19, 2003 bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, the August 29, 2003,
bombing of a major mosque complex in Najaf that killed the leader of the main Shiite
faction (then called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, renamed
in June 2007 to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, ISCI), Mohammad Baqr Al
Hakim.
As a result, the United States has, from the inception of the insurgency, focused
its combat on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his foreign fighter network in Iraq, and his
successors. On March 15, 2004, Ansar al-Islam (see above) was named as “Foreign
Terrorist Organization” under the Immigration and Nationality Act. On October 15,
31 “‘Key Judgments’ on Terrorist Threat To U.S.” New York Times, July 18, 2007.
32 Brinkley, Joel. Few Signs of Infiltration By Foreign Fighters in Iraq. New York Times,
November 19, 2003.
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2004, the State Department named the “Monotheism and Jihad Group” — the
successor to Ansar al-Islam — as an FTO. The designation said that the Monotheism
group “was...responsible for the U.N. headquarters bombing in Baghdad.”33 Later
that month, perhaps in response to that designation, Zarqawi changed the name of his
organization to “Al Qaeda Jihad Organization in the Land of Two Rivers
(Mesopotamia - Iraq) — commonly known now as Al Qaeda in Iraq, or AQ-I. The
FTO designation was applied to the new name.
While focusing primarily on Zarqawi and his network, U.S. officials were also
attempting to analyze the evolution of the foreign fighter network in Iraq. Some
attention was focused on a group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna, apparently an offshoot
of the Zarqawi network that was operating in northern Iraq, including the Kurdish
areas and areas of Arab Iraq around Mosul. It was named as an FTO as an alias of
Ansar al-Islam when the latter group was designated in March 2004, and Ansar al-
Sunna remains on the FTO list. In its most significant attack after the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the group claimed responsibility for February 1, 2004, twin suicide
attacks in Irbil, northern Iraq, which killed over 100 Kurds, including some senior
Kurdish officials.34 Another major attack — attributed to Ansar al-Sunna by the
State Department “Country Reports on Terrorism: 2006” (released April 2007 by the
State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism) — was the
December 2004 suicide bombing of a U.S. military dining facility at Camp Marez in
the northern city of Mosul, which killed 13 U.S. soldiers. The State Department
report said that Ansar al-Sunna “continues to conduct attacks against a wide range
of targets including Coalition Forces, the Iraqi government and security forces, and
Kurdish and Shia figures.”
Along with the designations came stepped up U.S. military efforts to find and
capture or kill Zarqawi. There were several reported “near misses,” according to
press reports.35 However, on June 7, 2006, U.S. forces were able to track Zarqawi
to a safe house in Hibhib, near the city of Baqubah, in the mixed Sunni-Shiite
province of Diyala, and an airstrike by one U.S. F-16 mortally wounded him.
AQ-I Strategy. Before his death, Zarqawi had largely set AQ-I’s strategy as
an effort to provoke all out civil war between the newly dominant Shiite Arabs and
the formerly pre-eminent Sunni Arabs. In this strategy, Zarqawi apparently
calculated that provoking civil war could, at the very least, undermine Shiite efforts
to consolidate their political control of post-Saddam Iraq. If fully successful, the
strategy could compel U.S. forces to leave Iraq by undermining U.S. public support
for the war effort, and thereby leaving the Shiite government vulnerable to continued
AQ-I and Sunni insurgent attack. The strategy might have been controversial among
Al Qaeda circles, as evidenced by a purported letter (if genuine) from the number two
Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to Zarqawi, in July 2005. In that letter,
33 Zarqawi Group Formally Designated Terrorists by State Department. Usinfo.state.gov.,
October 15, 2004.
34 Al Qaeda Linked Islamist Group Claims Deadly Arbil Attacks in Iraq. Agence France
Presse, February 4, 2004.
35 Bazzi, Mohammad. “Another Near Miss” Long Island Newsday, May 20, 2005.
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Zawahiri questioned Zarqawi’s strategy in Iraq by arguing that committing violence
against Shiite civilians and religious establishments would undermine the support of
the Iraqi people for AQ-I and the Sunni “resistance” more broadly.36
To implement its strategy, AQ-I under Zarqawi focused primarily on spectacular
suicide bombings intended to cause mass Shiite casualties or to destroy sites sacred
to Shiites. Several suicide bombings were conducted in 2005 against Shiite
celebrations, causing mass casualties. The most significant event was the February
22, 2006, bombing of the Shiite “Golden Mosque” in Sunni-inhabited Samarra,
which is in Salahuddin Province. The attack largely destroyed the golden dome of
the mosque. It touched off widespread Shiite reprisals against Sunnis nationwide and
is widely considered to have started the “civil war” that raged from the time of the
bombing until late 2007, when it appeared to abate. Many sources and analyses
attribute the Samarra bombing to AQ-I,37 although the State Department terrorism
report for 2006 did not specifically cite AQ-I as the perpetrator of the attack. On
several occasions, President Bush has said that Zarqawi largely succeeded in his
strategy, although he and other senior Administration officials did not, even at the
height of the violence in late 2006, characterize the Iraq as in a state of “civil war.”
By the end of 2006 and in early 2007, most senior U.S. officials were identifying
AQ-I as a driving force, or even the driving force, of the insurgency. In his “threat
assessment” testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 27,
2007, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Gen. Michael Maples called AQ-I
“the largest and most active of the Iraq-based terrorist groups.” On April 26, 2007,
at a press briefing, the overall U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, called
AQ-I “probably public enemy number one” in Iraq. On July 12, 2007, US. military
spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, said that AQ-I was responsible for 80
to 90% of the suicide bombings in Iraq, and that defeating it was a main focus of U.S.
operations. Some U.S. commanders said that, while most foreign fighters going to
Iraq become suicide bombers, others are contributing to the overall insurgency as
snipers, logisticians, and financiers.38 However, other U.S. commanders noted —
and continue to note — that these major bombings constituted a small percentage of
overall attacks in Iraq (which in early 2007 numbered about 175 per day), and that
most of the U.S. combat deaths came from roadside bombs and direct or indirect
munitions fire likely wielded by Iraqi Sunni insurgent fighters.
2007 Iraqi Sunni “Awakening” Movement/U.S. Operations and
“Troop Surge”
In January 2007, President Bush articulated a new counter-insurgency strategy
developed by Gen. Petraeus and others, based on assessments within the
3 6 [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006
/203gpuul.asp?pg=2]
37 One such analysis is: Beehner, Lionel. Backgrounder: Al-Qaeda in Iraq: Resurging or
Splintering? Council on Foreign Relations, updated July 16, 2007.
38 “U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis, Citing Role in Iraq.” New York Times,
July 27, 2007.
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Administration and outside experts, such as the “Iraq Study Group,” which released
its final report on December 6, 2006, that U.S. policy was failing to produce stability.
The deterioration in the previous U.S. strategy was attributed, in part, to the
burgeoning sectarian violence that AQ-I had helped set off. The cornerstone of the
new strategy was to increase the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad and in Anbar
Province in order to be able to protect the civilian population rather than simply
conduct combat operations against AQ-I and Sunni insurgents. The U.S. “troop
surge” did not reach full strength until June 2007.
The U.S. troop surge was intended, in part, to try to take advantage of a growing
rift within the broad insurgency that was being observed by U.S. commanders in Iraq.
as early as mid-2005. The Zarqawi strategy of attempting to provoke civil war, and
some of its ideology and practices in the Sunni areas, were not universally popular
among Iraq’s Sunnis, even among some Sunni insurgent groups. Strategically, Iraqi
Sunnis have discernible political goals in Iraq, and some AQ-I tactics, such as attacks
on Shiite civilians, might prevent any future power sharing compromise with Iraq’s
Shiites. AQ-I fighters have broader goals - defeating the United States, establishing
an Islamic state in Iraq that could expand throughout the region, and other ambitious
objectives beyond Iraq. Some Iraqi Sunni insurgents believed that attacks should be
confined to “combatant”targets — Iraqi government forces, most of which are Shiite,
Iraqi government representatives, and U.S. and other coalition forces.
Other Iraqi Sunnis resented AQ-I practices in the regions where AQ-I fighters
congregated, including reported enforcement of strict Islamic law, segregation by sex,
forcing males to wear beards, and banning all alcohol sales and consumption. In
some cases, according to a variety of press reports, AQ-I fighters killed Iraqi Sunnis
found violating these strictures. Some interpret the resentment among Iraqi Sunnis
as economic - that the constant fighting in the Sunni areas had shut down almost all
commerce and deprived Iraqi Sunnis of their livelihoods. Others believe that the
strains between AQ-I and Iraqi Sunni insurgent fighters were a competition for power
and control over the insurgency. According to this view, Iraqi Sunni leaders no more
wanted to be dominated by foreign Sunnis than they did by Iraqi Shiites or U.S.
soldiers. During 2003-2006 these strains were mostly muted as Iraqi Sunnis
cooperated with AQ-I toward the broader goal of overturning the Shiite-dominated,
U.S.-backed power structure in Iraq.
The first evidence of strains between AQ-I and Iraqi Sunni insurgents emerged
in May 2005 in the form of a reported battle between AQ-I fighters and Iraqi Sunni
tribal militiamen in the western town of Husaybah. Still, U.S. commanders had not,
at this point, articulated or developed a successful strategy to exploit this rift, and .
Zarqawi was temporarily successful in countering the strains developing between
AQ-I and the Iraqi Sunni political and insurgent structures. In January 2006, AQ-I
announced formation of the “Mujahidin Shura Council” — an umbrella organization
of six groups including AQ-I and five Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups, mostly those with
an Islamist ideology. Forming the Shura Council appeared to many to be an attempt
by AQ-I to demonstrate that it was working cooperatively with its Iraqi Sunni hosts
and not seeking their subordination. To further this impression, in April 2006, the
Council announced that an Iraqi, Abdullah Rashid (aka Abu Umar) al-Baghdadi, had
been appointed its leader, although there were doubts as to Baghdadi’s true identity.
(In July 2007, a captured AQ-I operative said Baghdadi does not exist at all, but was
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a propaganda tool to disguise AQ-I’s large role in the insurgency.39) Iraqi Sunni
insurgent groups dominated by ex-Baath Party and ex-Saddam era military members
apparently did not join the Mujahidin Shura. AQ-I continued to operate under the
Mujahidin Shura umbrella at least until Zarqawi’s death.
The shift to increased integration with Iraqi Sunni insurgents continued after
Zarqawi’s demise. After his death, Abu Ayub al-Masri (an Egyptian, also known as
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir) was formally named leader of the Mujahidin Shura Council
(and therefore leader of AQ-I). According to the State Department terrorism report
for 2006, al-Masri “continued [Zarqawi’s] strategy of targeting Coalition forces and
Shi’a civilians in an attempt to foment sectarian strife.” In October 2006, al-Masri
declared the “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) organization under which AQ-I and its allied
groups now claim their attacks. ISI appeared to be a replacement for the Mujahidin
Shura Council. In April 2007, the ISI named a “cabinet” consisting of a minister of
war (al-Masri), the head of the cabinet (al-Baghdadi), and seven other “ministers.”
The “Awakening” and “Salvation” Rebellions Against AQ-I. The
AQ-I moves toward greater cooperation with the Iraqi insurgents did not satisfy the
entire Sunni community, even though that community remained resentful of the
Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and its perceived
virtual monopoly on power in Baghdad. In late 2006 and early 2007, U.S.
commanders began to report increasing sentiment among the Iraqi Sunni community
in Anbar Province to drive AQ-I fighters out of Anbar and to cooperate with U.S.
efforts to secure the cities and towns of the province. This became known as the
“Awakening” (As Sahawa) that declared its aim as working with the U.S.-led
coalition to expel AQ-I from Anbar and to secure the province. In September 2006,
23 Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar, led by a tribal sub-leader named Abd al-Sattar Al
Rishawi, formed an “Anbar Salvation Council.” The Council initially recruited about
13,000 young Sunnis from the province to help secure Ramadi, Fallujah, and other
Anbar cities. The Council also survived the September 13, 2007 killing of Rishawi
by a suicide bomber believed to belong to AQ-I. Rishawi’s brother (Shaykh Ahmad
al-Rishawi) later took over the group and, along with the governor (Mamoun Rashid
al-Awani) and other tribal figures from Anbar, visited Washington D.C. in November
2007 to discuss the security progress in their province.
The U.S. “troop surge” included the addition of 4,000 U.S. Marines in Anbar
Province. This additional force apparently emboldened the Anbar Salvation Council
to continue recruiting Sunni volunteers to secure the province and purportedly
convinced Anbar residents to increase their cooperation with U.S. forces to prevent
violence. U.S. commanders emboldened this cooperation by offering funds ($300 -
$350 per month per fighter) and training, although no U.S. weapons, to locally
recruited Sunni security forces. These volunteers are now referred to as “Sons of
Iraq,” and there are about 75,000 Sunni Sons of Iraq throughout Iraq, and another
15,000 Shiites who are opposed to Shiite extremist groups such as that of Moqtada
Al Sadr.
39 Gordon, Michael. “U.S. Says Insurgent Leader It Couldn’t Find Never Was.” New York
Times, July 19, 2007.
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By June 2007, at the height of the U.S. troop surge, Gen. Petraeus called
security improvements in Anbar “breathtaking” and said that security incidents in the
province had declined by about 90%. He and other commanders reported an ability
to walk incident free, although with security, in downtown Ramadi, a city that had
been a major battleground only months earlier. General Petraeus testified in April
2008 that he estimates that Anbar Province could be turned over to Provincial Iraqi
Control by July 2008.
The positive trends observed in Anbar encouraged other anti-AQ-I Sunnis to
join the Awakening movement. In May 2007, a Diyala Salvation Council was
formed in Diyala Province of tribal leaders who wanted to stabilize that restive
province. In early 2007, Amiriyah was highly violent, but has since been stabilized
by the emergence of former Sunni insurgents now cooperating with U.S. forces as a
force called the “Amiriyah Freedom Fighters.” These fighters claim to have expelled
AQ-I from their neighborhoods. Other Baghdad neighborhoods, including Saddam
stronghold Adhamiyah, began to undergo similar transformations. The trend
expanded to parts of Baghdad, such as Amiriyah, and other districts. In Baghdad, the
U.S. military established supported this trend in the course of the Baghdad Security
Plan (“troop surge”) by establishing about 100 combat outposts, including 33 “Joint
Security Stations” in partnership with the ISF, to clear neighborhoods of AQ-I and
to encourage the population to come forward with information about AQ-I hideouts.
The combination of these trends and U.S. policies has brought Baghdad to the point
where 75% of Baghdad’s districts are now considered “secure,” according to U.S.
commanders in June 2007. Prime Minister Maliki said on February 16, 2008 that
AQ-I had been largely driven out of Baghdad.
Gen. Petraeus attempted to increase the momentum of the Awakening
Movement and the CLC program with extensive U.S.-led combat40 against AQ-I and
its sanctuaries. The large scale operations included those related to the troop surge
in Baghdad, and two other large operations — Phantom Thunder and Phantom Strike.
Operation Phantom Thunder began on June 15, 2007, intended to clear AQ-I
sanctuaries in the “belts” of towns and villages within a 30 mile radius around
Baghdad. Part of the operation reportedly involved surrounded Baquba, the capital
city of Diyala Province, to prevent the escape of AQ-I from the U.S. clearing
operations in the city. A related offensive, Operation Phantom Strike, was conducted
in August 2007 to prevent AQ-I from establishing any new sanctuaries.
General Petraeus appeared before four Committees of Congress during April 8-
9, 2008 to discuss progress in Iraq.41 He testified that the assistance from the Sons
of Iraq, coupled with “relentless pursuit” of AQ-I by U.S. forces, had “reduced
substantially” the threat posed by AQ-I. However, he testified that AQ-I is “still
capable of lethal attacks” and that the United States must “maintain relentless
pressure on the organization, on the networks outside Iraq that support it, and on the
40 For a detailed description of U.S. anti- AQ-I battles in 2007, see Kagan, Kimberly. “How
They Did It.” Weekly Standard, November 19, 2007.
41 The quotes in this paragraph are from the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus before the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House
Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee. April 8-9, 2008.
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resource flows that sustain it.” He also testified that Al Qaeda’s senior leaders
...”still view Iraq as the central front in their global strategy” and “send funding,
direction, and foreign fighters to Iraq.”
Strategy to Maintain Progress.
The Bush Administration strategy going
forward, according to General Petraeus, is to retain the loyalty of the Sons of Iraq
fighters and promoting their reconciliation with the Iraqi government, while
maintaining combat pressure on AQ-I. General Petraeus testified and has said in
other settings that AQ-I remains highly active in and around Mosul, and views Mosul
as key to its survival in Iraq, because it is astride the entry routes from Syria. To
maintain pressure on AQ-I, in January 2008, the U.S. military began Operation Iron
Harvest and Operation Iron Reaper to disrupt AQ-I in northern Iraq. (In his
testimony, General Petraeus provided a slide showing shrinkage of AQ-I influence
in Iraq; it is at the end of this paper.)
To retain the loyalty of the Sons of Iraq, U.S. officials are trying to fold them
into the official Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), which would then pay their salaries.
However, the Shiite-dominated Maliki government fears that the Sunni fighters are
trying to burrow into the ISF with the intent of regaining power in Iraq, and have only
agreed to accept about 20,000 Sons of Iraq fighters onto the ISF payrolls, not all of
which would be Sunni. U.S. commanders say that this hesitation by the Maliki
government threatens the Sons of Iraq program and risks driving the Sunnis back into
insurgent ranks and back into cooperation with AQ-I. Some Sons of Iraq have
already abandoned their positions out of frustration, particularly in Diyala Province,
although they have not necessarily resumed insurgent activity.
Al Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden observed the setbacks to AQ-I as
a result of the Sunni Awakening movement and U.S. operations. In October 2007,
bin Laden issued a taped statement in which he admitted that AQ-I had made
mistakes and urged it to reconcile with other Iraqi insurgent groups. In early
February 2008, press reports cited captured AQ-I documents that urged members of
the organization to avoid killing Sunni civilians.42 On the other hand, AQ-I is
increasingly targeting Sons of Iraq fighters and other Sunnis supporting them and
tribal Awakening and Salvation movement members, further feeding the perception
that AQ-I is using brutal tactics even against Iraqi Sunnis.
The Petraeus assessments have been largely corroborated by senior U.S.
intelligence officials. In early February 2008, the Director of National Intelligence
(DNI) Michael McConnell delivered to Congress the assessment of worldwide
threats facing the United States. According to his February 5, 2008, testimony:
Al Qaida in Iraq (AQI) suffered major setbacks last year, although it is still
capable of mounting lethal attacks. Hundreds of AQI leadership, operational,
media, financial, logistical, weapons, and foreign fighter facilitator cadre have
been killed or captured. With much of the Sunni population turning against AQI,
its maneuver room and ability to operate have been severely constrained. AQI’s
attack tempo, as measured by numbers of suicide attacks, had dropped by more
42 Paley, Amit. Shift in Tactics Aims to Revive Struggling Insurgency. Washington Post,
February 8, 2008. P.A13.
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than half by year’s end after approaching all time highs in early 2007. We see
indications that al-Qaida’s global image is beginning to lose some of its luster;
nonetheless, we still fact multifaceted terrorist threats.
Estimated Numbers of Foreign Fighters. Although there have been
differences among commanders about the contribution of the foreign fighters to the
overall violence in Iraq, estimates of the numbers of foreign fighters have remained
fairly consistent over time, at least as a percentage of the overall insurgency. As early
as October 2003, U.S. officials estimated that as many as 3,000 might be non-Iraqi,43
although, suggesting uncertainty in the estimate, Gen. Abizaid said on January 29,
2004, that the number of foreign fighters in Iraq was “low” and “in the hundreds.”44
A September 2005 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
estimated that there were about 3,000 non-Iraqi fighters in Iraq - about 10% of the
estimated total size of the insurgency. In testimony before Congress in January 2007,
the then Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (John Negroponte) said that
foreign fighters constitute less than 10% of the insurgents in Iraq. In December 2007,
al-Baghdadi (see above), the Emir (leader) of the Islamic State of Iraq (name used by
AQI, see above) claimed that the Islamic State is almost all Iraqi, and has only 200
foreign fighters.45 However, as noted above, the Islamic State of Iraq was formed
in part to try to portray AQ-I as an Iraqi, not a foreign, organization and many would
argue that the foreign component of the organization is purposely understated by AQ-
I spokespeople.
Of the approximately 25,000 insurgents in U.S.-led detention in Iraq as of
November 2007, only 290 or 1.2%, were non-Iraqi. This could suggest that the
percentage of foreign fighters in Iraq has dropped, or it could indicate that it has been
harder to capture the foreign fighters than it has been to capture Iraqi insurgents.
Some might argue that the foreign fighters tend to fight to the death rather than allow
themselves to be captured, and that the percentage in detention is not an accurate
indicator of the percentage of foreigners involved in the Iraq insurgency.
Another issue is the rate of flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. U.S. commanders
said in July 2007 that approximately 60-80 foreign fighters come across the border
every month (primarily the Iraq-Syria border) to participate in the Iraq insurgency.46
Press reports say that U.S. commanders estimate that the flow slowed to about 40 in
October 2007, in part because of a U.S. raid in September 2007 on a desert camp at
Sinjar, need the Syrian border, that was the hub of operations to smuggle foreign
43 Bonner, Raymond and Joel Brinkley. Latest Attacks Underscore Differing Intelligence
Estimates of Strength of Foreign Guerrillas. New York Times, October 28, 2003.
44 Shanker, Thom. U.S. Commanders Surveys Challenges in Iraq Region. New York Times,
January 30, 2004.
45 “For the Scum Disappears Like Froth Cast Out.” Posting purportedly by AQ-I fighters
to [http://www.muslm.net] on December 4, 2007.
46 Parker, Ned. “Saudis’ Role in Iraq Insurgency Outlined.” Los Angeles Times, July 15,
2007.
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fighters into Iraq.47 General Petraeus testified in April 2008 that about 50 - 70
foreign fighters were still coming across the Syrian border into Iraq, and that Syria
“has taken some steps to reduce the flow of foreign fighters through its territory, but
not enough to shut down the key network that supports AQ-I.”
Another issue is the specific nationalities of the foreigners. One press report
in July 2007, quoting U.S. officials in Iraq, said that about 40% of the foreign fighters
in Iraq are of Saudi origin.48 The November 22, 2007 New York Times article, cited
above, says that Saudi Arabia and Libya accounted for 60% of the 700 foreign
fighters who came into Iraq over the past year. That article was consistent with the
findings of a study produced by the Combating Terrorism Center of West Point (Al
Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq), based on records of 700 foreign nationals who had
entered Iraq, and whose papers were found in Iraq by U.S.-led forces near Sinjar,
along the border with Syria, published in February 2008.49 The Sinjar records
indicated that, of the 595 records in which a country of origin was stated, about 245
were of Saudi origin; about 110 were of Libyan origin; about 48 were of Syrian
origin; 47 were of Yemeni origin; 45 were of Algerian origin; about 40 were of
Moroccan origin and a similar amount were of Tunisian origin; about 20 were or
Jordanian origin; about 8 were of Egyptian origin; and 20 were “other.”
Linkages to Al Qaeda Central Leadership
Perhaps the most controversial question about AQ-I is the degree to which it is
linked, if at all, to the central leadership of Al Qaeda as represented by Osama bin
Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both of whom are widely believed to be hiding in
areas of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. That degree of linkage, if any,
might determine to what extent the U.S. combat effort in Iraq is part of the overall
post-September 11 war on the Al Qaeda organization, and whether or not AQ-I might
seek to be attacking the U.S. homeland or other non-Middle East targets.
As discussed above, on July 24, 2007, President Bush devoted much of a speech
to the argument that AQ-I is closely related to Al Qaeda’s central leadership. The
President noted the following details, including:
! In 2004, Zarqawi formally joined Al Qaeda and pledged allegiance
to bin Laden. Bin Laden then publicly declared that Zarqawi was the
“Prince of Al Qaeda in Iraq.” President Bush stated that, according
to U.S. intelligence, Zarqawi had met both bin Laden and Zawahiri.
He asserted later in the speech that, according to U.S. intelligence,
AQ-I is a “full member of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.”
47 Oppel, Richard. “Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S.” New York Times,
November 22, 2007.
48 “U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis, Citing Role in Iraq.” Op.cit.
49 Al Qaida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq. Harmony Project. Combating Terrorism Center at
West Point.
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! After Zarqawi’s death, bin Laden sent an aide named Abd al-Hadi
al-Iraqi to help Zarqawi’s successor, al-Masri, but al-Iraqi was
captured before reaching Iraq.
! That a captured AQ-I leader, an Iraqi named Khalid al-Mashhadani,
had told U.S. authorities that Baghdadi was fictitious. In July 2007,
Brig. Gen. Bergner, a U.S. military spokesman, told journalists that
Mashhadani is an intermediary between al-Masri and bin Laden and
Zawahiri.
! That AQ-I is the only insurgent group in Iraq “with stated ambitions
to make the country a base for attacks outside Iraq.” Referring to the
November 9, 2005, terrorist attacks on hotels in Zarqawi’s native
Jordan, President Bush said AQ-I “dispatched terrorists who bombed
a wedding reception in Jordan.” Referring to an August 2005
incident, he said AQ-I “sent operatives to Jordan where they
attempted to launch a rocket attack on U.S. Navy ships” docked at
the port of Aqaba.
In his speech, President Bush acknowledged but refuted some of the counter-
arguments. Some experts believe that links between Al Qaeda’s central leadership
and AQ-I are tenuous, at best, and that the few operatives linking the two do not
demonstrate an ongoing, substantial relationship. Others point to the Zawahiri
admonishment of Zarqawi, discussed above, as evidence that there is not a close
connection between the two. Still others maintain that there is little evidence that
AQ-I seeks to attack broadly outside Iraq, and that those incidents that have taken
place have been in Jordan, where Zarqawi might have wanted to try to undermine
King Abdullah II, whom Zarqawi opposed as too close to the United States. Since
the 2005 attacks noted above, there have been no attacks outside Iraq that can be
directly attributed to AQ-I.
Still, the DNI’s “threat assessment” testimony in February 2008, referred to
above, suggests that U.S. officials are alert to the potential for AQ-I to conduct
operations outside Iraq, either independently or at the behest of Al Qaeda leadership
believed to be in Pakistan. According to the February 5, 2008 testimony:
...I would like to highlight that AQI remains al-Qa’ida’s most visible and capable
affiliate. I am increasingly concerned that as we inflict significant damage on
al-Qa’ida in Iraq, it may shift resources to mounting more attacks outside of
Iraq...Although the ongoing conflict in Iraq will likely absorb most of AQI’s
resources over the next year, AQI has leveraged its broad external networks –
including some reaching into Europe – in support of external operations. It
probably will continue to devote some effort towards honoring Bin Laden’s
request in 2005 that AQI attempt to strike the United States, affirmed publicly
by current AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri in a November 2006 threat against
the White House.