Al Qaeda in Iraq is regrouping in Syria in an attempt to re-launch a terror war against the Maliki regime. Sheikh Issa al Masri, a senior commander and ideologue, is reported to have been sent to Damascus to reestablish al Qaeda’s facilitation and operations networks inside Syria. Sheikh Issa is working in conjunction with Abu Khalaf. The two are thought to have been behind the recent suicide attacks in Ninewa province and in Baghdad.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ba’athist insurgent groups have cooperated in the past. Between 2006 and 2007, units of the Islamic Army of Iraq, a group largely made up of former Ba’athists and soldiers, were subsumed into al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq.

The groups b...

Al Qaeda in Iraq is regrouping in Syria in an attempt to re-launch a terror war against the Maliki regime. Sheikh Issa al Masri, a senior commander and ideologue, is reported to have been sent to Damascus to reestablish al Qaeda’s facilitation and operations networks inside Syria. Sheikh Issa is working in conjunction with Abu Khalaf. The two are thought to have been behind the recent suicide attacks in Ninewa province and in Baghdad.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ba’athist insurgent groups have cooperated in the past. Between 2006 and 2007, units of the Islamic Army of Iraq, a group largely made up of former Ba’athists and soldiers, were subsumed into al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq.

The groups began to clash after al Qaeda assassinated tribal leaders and leaders of rival insurgent groups, and attempted to take over the Sunni insurgency through the Islamic State of Iraq. Other Sunni insurgent groups such as the 1920s Revolution Brigades turned on al Qaeda and formed government-sanctioned militias called Awakening councils. The Anbar Awakening, the nucleus of the group, drove al Qaeda out of the province just as the US began ramping up forces in 2007 as part of the “surge.”

During the military operations in 2007, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the remaining elements of the Sunni insurgents that went against the state were largely defeated. The groups went from controlling vast tracts of territory to small pockets in the northern regions of Diyala and Ninewa provinces. Al Qaeda in Iraq still possesses the capacity to conduct large strikes periodically, but no longer controls territory in Iraq.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/08/al_qaeda_takes_credi_1.php#ixzz0PFqLiPNC

By Bill Roggio http://www.longwarjournal.org/