Cradle of war, school of jihad

Jihadists in the Middle East

Jul 14th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Al-Qaeda's allies have turned Iraq into a new Afghanistan

ON JULY 7th, as bombs were going off in London, an Islamist website released a videotape showing an Egyptian diplomat, blindfolded and handcuffed. In an accompanying statement the “Al-Qaeda Organisation for Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers” denounced the diplomat, Ihab al-Sharif, as an “enemy of God” and declared that its holy warriors had by now killed him. It warned other Arab and Muslim countries that if they stationed diplomats in Baghdad, they would suffer the same fate.

The video did not, like earlier ones, show the actual killing. It was nevertheless the latest coup de théâtre by the group and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Jordanian-born Mr Zarqawi, who swears allegiance to Osama bin Laden, is held responsible for some of the most brutal violence in Iraq. The suicide bombings, the kidnapping and beheading of hostages—all displayed on sympathetic websites—have helped turn Mr Zarqawi into a folk-hero and Iraq into the arena of choice for young Muslims who want to kill Americans. He has skilfully used the internet to amplify his exploits amongst Muslims around the world. A CIA report circulated among American government agencies in May, and summarised a few weeks later in the New York Times, spelt out what many experts had already concluded, that post-invasion Iraq is playing the role Afghanistan did in the 1980s and 1990s, as a nursery of Islamic extremism.

Only a few months ago American officials were saying Mr Zarqawi was on the run. They had killed or captured over 20 of his senior people and, potentially even more important, they had found his laptop. He was certainly wounded in an American attack. And there were even rumours, strongly denied by the man himself, that he had been forced to seek medical treatment outside the country for serious injuries.

But even if it has suffered setbacks, Mr Zarqawi's group is still able to strike with deadly effect. Its strategy is to drive wedges between Iraq and its Arab and Muslim hinterland, between Iraqi Sunni and Shia, and between the Iraqi people and the new government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
As well as the killing of Mr Sharif, other Arab representatives have also been targeted. On July 5th gunmen fired on top diplomats from both Bahrain and Pakistan. The attacks were designed to weaken the Jaafari government by denying it international legitimacy. Mr Sharif, had he lived, would have become the first full Arab ambassador in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Instead he was snatched on a Baghdad street while buying a newspaper; unwisely, he had been unguarded. After his death four days later, Egypt said it would “temporarily” station its diplomats in neighbouring Jordan, as will Pakistan now.

For Mr Zarqawi there are three enemies: “Crusaders”, Jews and rawafidh (literally, rejectionists; a derogatory term for the Shia). He misses no opportunity to stir up Sunni-Shia animosity. When Sunni clerics accused the Badr Brigade (the militia of a prominent Shia party) of sending hit squads to target Sunnis, Mr Zarqawi issued an audiotape on July 5th announcing the formation of a rival force, the Omar Brigade. This would specialise in killing Shia, leaving the rest of Mr Zarqawi's forces free to fight Crusaders. Attacks on several Badr commanders followed. (The Badr Brigade, which claims unconvincingly to have turned itself into a purely political movement, has denied involvement in sectarian killings.)

Foreign fields

Mr Zarqawi's influence, though focused on Iraq, is not confined there. Some experts believe the network he developed in Europe (with Milan as its hub) to send young Muslim recruits to Iraq has recently been bringing some of them back in the other direction. One theory is that some may have been involved in the planning or execution of the Madrid bombings last year and last week's London bombings.

The “Iraq effect” is worrying Saudi Arabia, too. Hundreds of young Saudis are thought to have joined the jihadists in Iraq. This has upset the Bush administration, adding yet another item to its list of grievances with the Saudi princes in the wake of the terrorist attacks in America on September 11th 2001. No less troubling is the thought that some of these young recruits will eventually return home to fight in the insurgency being waged by the self-styled “Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula”.

Reflecting a new realism in Riyadh, the country's powerful interior minister, Prince Nayef, has made it clear the government is bracing itself for future trouble. The first generation of jihadists, groomed in Afghanistan in the 1980s, were bad enough, he said on July 10th; the new generation would be even worse.

The Saudi insurgency flared up in May 2003, shortly after American-led forces had toppled Saddam Hussein. In princely minds, the two events are linked. The aim of the Saudi insurgents is to punish America by driving its citizens (and other infidels) from Saudi soil, and to punish the House of Saud for the quiet logistical support that it gave to the Americans during the Iraq war.
The Saudi security forces have gone some way towards suppressing what they refer to as the “deviant group”. Over the past two years they have killed over 100 militants including, on July 3rd, Younis al-Hayari, a Moroccan who headed their latest “most wanted” list. But the fear is that a weakened insurgency in Saudi Arabia could revive if young, battle-hardened jihadists return from Iraq and breathe new life into it.

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