Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Overview

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a jihadist terrorist organization founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its roots lay in Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which Zarqawi established in 1999. His network developed an insurgent campaign in Iraq after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In October 2004, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and adopted the Al-Qaeda in Iraq name, making his organization part of the Al-Qaeda network. It attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces, governing institutions and civilians. Its deliberate attacks on Shia Muslims sought to deepen sectarian divisions, destabilize the Iraqi government and provoke civil war.

The organization passed through several names and leadership changes. After Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, its leadership and allied groups declared the Islamic State of Iraq in October. Sunni tribal resistance and U.S.-Iraqi operations weakened it in 2007, but local recruitment helped it survive. Under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its expansion into Syria produced a confrontation with Al-Qaeda’s leadership. That split created hostile Al-Qaeda and Islamic State camps. The Islamic State movement’s history therefore reaches back to Zarqawi’s organization, years before its 2014 caliphate declaration.

Founding and ideology

Zarqawi established Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999 while building a militant network in Afghanistan. He met bin Laden there during the establishment of a training camp but declined an attempt to recruit him into Al-Qaeda. After the Taliban fell, Zarqawi moved to Iraq. His organization recruited foreign fighters, drew on his contacts and developed plans for attacks. Following the 2003 invasion, it sought to expel U.S. forces, overthrow Iraq’s government, purge Shia Muslims and establish an Islamic state. The network’s campaign in Iraq preceded its formal allegiance to bin Laden.

Zarqawi used spectacular violence as a political strategy. Attacks on Shia civilians and religious sites were intended to provoke retaliation, intensify sectarian conflict and undermine Iraq’s governing authorities. His propaganda also sought to delegitimize Iraq’s democratic process. The organization attacked members of religious minorities and civilians who opposed it. Zarqawi’s cruelty toward Shia Muslims drew criticism within Al-Qaeda, while the jihadist ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi criticized the excessive violence of his leadership. These objections did not end the campaign. Zarqawi’s speeches, methods and goal of statehood became part of the ideological roots of the later Islamic State.

In October 2004, Zarqawi formally pledged allegiance to bin Laden and his organization became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The pledge connected his Iraqi campaign to Al-Qaeda’s wider network while leaving Zarqawi in command of operations on the ground. The change in name marked a formal affiliation, rather than the beginning of the organization’s activity. A review of captured Iraqi documents found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al-Qaeda; Zarqawi’s post-2003 insurgency should not be confused with such a connection.

History

From 2003, Al-Qaeda in Iraq used coordinated bombings and other attacks to deepen Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divisions and destabilize its government. Fallujah, west of Baghdad, became a headquarters for armed groups including Zarqawi’s network. Al-Qaeda affiliates based in Baghdad helped move personnel, money and supplies across Iraq. The organization also used Mosul for logistics and fundraising, a role the city continued to play for its successor. Its attacks formed part of the broader violence of the Iraq War, alongside the continuing campaign against Al-Qaeda.

A U.S. airstrike killed Zarqawi in June 2006, shortly after the formation of the Mujahadeen Shura Council. Abu Ayyub al-Masri succeeded him in Al-Qaeda in Iraq. In October 2006, the council joined additional local groups and tribal leaders to declare the Islamic State of Iraq, with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as a leader. This was the movement’s first claimed state period. The declaration did not end the organization’s insurgent activity or its Al-Qaeda affiliation at the time, but it gave the Iraqi network a new political identity and a claim to rule territory.

The Islamic State of Iraq encountered strong resistance from Sunni Arab communities that rejected its coercion and its goal of a transnational caliphate. In June 2007, Iraqi Sunni tribes and local fighters battled its members for weeks. U.S. and Iraqi forces worked with Anbar tribes to weaken the organization around Fallujah. Security incidents in the city and surrounding countryside fell from roughly 750 in March 2007 to just over 80 in October. By late 2007, members had fled the Fallujah area or sought reintegration with Iraq’s government. The fighting left the organization so weakened that its spokespeople described a crisis.

The movement adapted by reducing its reliance on foreign fighters and recruiting local Iraqis. Reported arrivals of foreign jihadists fell from about 120 per month in 2007 to 40 in 2008 and 20 in 2009. This change made the network more able to exploit Sunni Arab grievances concerning exclusion from Iraqi institutions and attacks by Shiite militias. Iraqi authorities also linked prisoner releases under the 2008 amnesty law and the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement to renewed opportunities for major attacks. By 2009, the organization could no longer sustain a full armed insurgency, but it retained the capacity for high-profile bombings.

Structure and leadership

Zarqawi founded and led the organization through its precursor period and its October 2004 incorporation into Al-Qaeda. His personal network recruited foreign fighters and connected cells across Iraq. Following his death, al-Masri led Al-Qaeda in Iraq while Abu Omar al-Baghdadi served as a leader of the Islamic State of Iraq. Its structure combined an Al-Qaeda-affiliated Iraqi organization with local armed groups and tribal allies gathered under the Islamic State of Iraq declaration. The relationship between these names reflected an evolving movement, rather than two wholly separate campaigns.

A joint U.S.-Iraqi raid killed the leaders of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq in April 2010. Their deaths dealt the network a major blow, but did not destroy it. Its increasingly Iraqi membership could replace losses and draw on local grievances. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi subsequently led the Islamic State of Iraq network through its expansion into Syria. His refusal to accept Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s decision over the Syrian branch marked the end of the Iraqi leadership’s subordination to Al-Qaeda’s central command.

Funding and sponsors

The network relied on local logistics, fundraising and movement of personnel as well as recruits drawn from outside Iraq. Mosul long supported fundraising and supply activity for Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its successor. Affiliates based in Baghdad coordinated the movement of money, personnel and supplies for Zarqawi’s organization. Its contacts also enabled foreign fighters to enter Iraq. These networks helped sustain operations through leadership losses and changes in the organization’s name.

During the Syrian civil war, the Iraqi organization helped transfer foreign recruits and weapons through Iraq to fighters in Syria. It shaped the Al-Nusra Front’s attack policy while the Syrian group was initially connected to the Islamic State of Iraq network. The subsequent dispute over control of Al-Nusra showed that an organization built around Iraqi logistics had developed the capacity to project fighters, supplies and influence across the border.

Attacks and operations

Al-Qaeda in Iraq used suicide bombings, truck bombs, armed assaults, abductions and executions. Its violence targeted U.S. forces and Iraqi security personnel, as well as civilians, religious minorities and Sunni critics. The group abducted two U.S. soldiers whom it tortured and beheaded on video. Beyond Iraq, Zarqawi’s branch claimed three nearly simultaneous suicide bombings at hotels in Amman, Jordan, in November 2005. Those attacks killed 67 civilians and wounded an estimated 200.

On March 28, 2007, Al-Qaeda in Iraq assaulted Fallujah’s government center with mortars, machine guns, truck bombs and suicide vests. One truck bomb carried chlorine, which burned victims’ lungs. On August 27, a suicide bomber killed an imam who had publicly criticized Al-Qaeda, along with at least eight other people, at a Fallujah mosque. Such attacks demonstrated that the network treated local opponents, including fellow Sunnis, as targets. Its violence against Shia Muslims and members of religious minorities likewise served its effort to fracture Iraqi society. The Islamic State and its predecessors repeatedly targeted Shia Turkmens.

From 2008, the organization shifted most operations away from U.S. forces toward Iraqi police stations, military headquarters, security forces and federal ministries. It sought to discredit and destabilize Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government. After U.S. combat forces withdrew from Iraqi cities, its propaganda recast Iraq’s armed forces as occupiers. In August 2009, Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed suicide bombings against the Foreign Affairs and Finance ministries in Baghdad that killed 132 people. Suicide bombings targeting the Ministry of Justice and Baghdad’s provincial council on October 25 killed 147. Iraqi authorities arrested 73 people connected to the organization and suspected of involvement or complicity in the October attacks. The ministry bombings showed its continuing ability to strike central state institutions despite the losses it had suffered since 2007.

Designations and international status

The United States designated Al-Qaeda in Iraq a foreign terrorist organization in December 2004, after Zarqawi’s allegiance pledge and adoption of its Al-Qaeda name. Its attacks on civilians, Iraqi institutions and U.S. personnel made it a target of U.S. and Iraqi counterterrorism operations. Its affiliation with Al-Qaeda remained central to its international identity through the Islamic State of Iraq period, even as the Iraqi leadership pursued an increasingly independent course.

The dispute over Syria made that independence explicit. The Al-Nusra Front emerged in January 2012 as a Syrian branch of the Islamic State of Iraq network. In April 2013, Baghdadi announced that the Iraqi organization and Al-Nusra would unite under the name Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham. Al-Nusra rejected the merger and renewed its allegiance to al-Zawahiri. In June 2013, al-Zawahiri recognized Al-Nusra as Al-Qaeda’s independent Syrian branch rather than a subordinate of the Iraqi branch. Baghdadi’s leadership rejected his authority. The split produced rival organizations with separate military, logistical and propaganda systems and led to violent clashes. In February 2014, Al-Qaeda formally repudiated Baghdadi’s organization.

Current status

Al-Qaeda in Iraq no longer operated under its original name after the Islamic State of Iraq declaration and the movement’s later expansion into Syria. Its organizational line continued through the Islamic State of Iraq and Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham to the Islamic State. Zarqawi’s leadership, sectarian strategy and ambition to establish a state remained formative parts of that history. The 2013–2014 break also left Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State as hostile rival camps within the wider jihadist movement. Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s history therefore encompasses both its years as an Al-Qaeda affiliate and the decisions by its successors that ended that affiliation.