Al-Qaeda in Iraq: dissent in the ranks?

All three major London-based Arab dailes (al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Hayat, and al-Quds al-Arabi) are prominently reporting signs of dissent in the ranks of al-Qaeda in Iraq.  It hasn't turned up at all on Google News, so I guess it hasn't been reported in English yet.  The stories are based on the appearance of a video on a jihadi site by Abu Usama al-Iraqi, an al-Qaeda figure, calling on bin Laden to fire Abu Ayub al-Masri as leader of the Iraqi al-Qaeda branch.  Abu Usama's video detailed a list of deviations and mistakes made by al-Masri, including offenses against Sunni tribes and local religious leaders, which he claims are spreading dissension and harming morale. 

Along with intra-Sunni complaints, the video seems to primarily be upset that al-Qaeda and its appointed leader in Iraq have gone soft on the Shia.  Abu Usama seems upset by al-Masri's adherence to Ayman al-Zawahiri's advice to stop attacking the Shia and Muslim civilians - leading Abu Usama to speculate about possible collaboration between al-Qaeda's leaders and the Crusaders and the Shia.  Yeah. Al-Hayat also focuses on Abu Usama's Sunni-centric arguments and dismay at signs that al-Qaeda is going soft on the Shia.  It also reports a video whose authenticity could not be verified claiming the formation of a new hardline Sunni jihadi formation.   What works with the general public (knocking off the attacks on Shia and civilians) may be offending the base...

I'm honestly not sure what to make of this.  It wouldn't surprise me if there were internal disagreements in al-Qaeda's ranks about bin Laden and Zawahiri's strategy - there always have been.   Local passions in the heat of an escalating civil war and a really deep anti-Shia prejudice among the hard core jihadis could well overwhelm the "all-Muslim" grand strategy cooked up by al-Qaeda Central far from the fray. The internet has become an important way for the far-flung and disaggregated al-Qaeda ranks to communicate with each other and debate policies - that isn't new.  And al-Masri himself may be a bad leader, unpopular, who knows?   

When I saw it in the two Saudi dailies, I was skeptical because it sounds more like wishful thinking or disinformation than anything hard.  It has psyops written all over it.   It's in their (and America's) interest to portray al-Qaeda as in disarray, and to spread disarray among the jihadis to demoralize them.   But al-Quds al-Arabi doesn't have that incentive - it is neither Saudi-owned nor overly hostile to the Iraqi insurgency (but maybe they just fell for it).  I'm sure that the video did appear on the internet as described, though I haven't had the chance to track it down yet myself.  But its provenance remains unclear - and its simultaneous coverage in (primarily) the Saudi-owned media is a real red flag (al-Arabiya is now running with the story, but not al-Jazeera from what I can tell).  (And for what it's worth, I've been warned off it by at least one source who follows this stuff carefully.)   But it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days and weeks.

UPDATE:  in comments below,  the excellent new blogger "Badger", argues that  (even if it's authentic) Abu Usama's criticism could be read the other way:   that when he urges bin Laden to act in order to "ward off fitna" and that "the key to fitna is in your hands," he is actually complaining that al-Masri is not obeying Zawahiri's instructions to lay off the Shia.  I'm not so sure.  Badger's reading is plausible, but against it is the general view that al-Masri has been more amenable to al-Qaeda Central's directives than was Zarqawi.  There's also an odd part of the tape reported only in al-Quds, which basically says that the Sunnis are beginning to wonder about the "strange behavior" of the al-Qaeda organization, and suspecting a relationship between the AQ leadership and the Crusaders and Rejectionists (Shia) because its policies seem to support what those enemies want.  Also, the second video reported in al-Hayat announcing the formation of a new Sunni jihadist front is very clear in its sectarianism - including the "hated rejectionists (Shia)" in their enemies list.  I'm going to try to track down a copy of the tape itself to see what was on it beyond the excerpts in the press accounts, which may resolve this interpretive disagreement.

UPDATE 2:  the story is now beginning to appear in the American press (Reuters via Washington Post here).  Reuters plays down the Shia angle one way or the other and focuses instead on Abu Usama's demands that bin Laden appoint an Iraqi instead of an Egyptian to lead the Iraqi jihad.  Reuters also points out that al-Arabiya aired the video.  Yeah, I'll bet they did.   Reuters also said this about the video, which I still haven't seen:  "...said the man in the grainy video, the audio of which was electronically altered. His face was covered and he appeared to be standing in a room."  The one thing the video had going for it, I thought, was a recognizable figure speaking - which would make it at least authentic. Now that's not the case either.  I am growing pretty certain that this is not an authentic video, and should be treated as a probable psyop aimed at demoralizing and confusing the Iraqi al-Qaeda cadres.    We know that the US is doing these kinds of things as part of its intensified information warfare, that's no secret, the only question is whether this tape is one of them.  The evidence is building.

LAST UPDATE:  al-Quds al-Arabi reports that known al-Qaeda in Iraq figures deny the authenticity of the Abu Usama video in direct communication with newspaper (thanks to Magdi Abd al-Hadi in comments).  ...and more from Badger, who is intrigued by the focus on the Shia menace: "I've tried to indicate in earlier posts the way in which official Saudi thinking has shifted an Israel-the-enemy to a race-based Persia-the-enemy position (posts dealing with texts by Mamoun Fandy and Ghassan al-Imam, starting with the Oct 8 post called "Signs of a latent Saudi-Israeli alliance to confront Iran") in line with the new Bush anti-Iran approach for the whole region. What is at issue here is the conversion of Sunni-Shiite rivalry into a full-throated race-based anti-Persian campaign. Always a good idea to know what the issues are."    While Badger doesn't seem quite to agree yet, his/her interpretation actually supports the "produced in Saudi Arabia and/or the USA" argument.   (And I do recommend that you check out Badger's entire blog, which is new and has already produced some really good content.)

Comments

[Badger]

Regrettably, you have that backwards. The complaint in the new tape is not that the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda "adhered" to Zawahari's strictures about not attacking the Shia. The complaint is that the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda "ignored" or "rejected" the Zawahari strictures. The complaint is not that the Iraqi organization has gone soft on the Shia, rather the opposite, and that is the meaning of his plea to Osama bin Laden: "You hold in your hand the key to fitna; it is yours to open or shut".

[aardvark]

serves me right for blogging with insomnia at 1 in the morning... I'm not sure if your interpretation is right, though. There's the grumbling about how the al-Qaeda leadership's behavior is "very strange" and the hints that people are talking. The other tape is pretty clear in its Sunni chauvinism, and similar to Abu Usama's list of complaints about the treatment of Sunnis. You could be right, though - I want to see the tape for myself but haven't scrounged it up yet.

[jonst]

With all due respect, I fundamentally disagree that it is: ".... [in]America's interest to portray al-Qaeda as in disarray". In fact I think just the opposite. The stronger the Bush Admin can play up AQ the better it is for them. Domestically, that is. It is all that stands between them and being tossed out on their political ear by the American public.

[aardvark]

jonst - maybe domestically, I just meant strictly in terms of fighting against al-qaeda and the insurgency, spreading disarray in their ranks through psyop was good strategy.

[Tom Scudder]

If you're feeling paranoid, note that Al Arabiya just got permission to reopen its Baghdad bureau.

[magdi abdelhadi]

that may put an end (for the time being) about that dubious video message

http://www.alquds.co.uk/index.asp?fname=today\z25.htm&storytitle=ffمجلس%20شوري%20المجاهدين%20في%20العراق%20يعلن%20تأسيس%20%20حلف%20المطيبين%20fff%20%20&storytitleb=&storytitlec=

[Badger]

Badger is grateful for the very generous remarks. Thank you. Just for completeness: I'd say the failure of Al-Jazeera to touch it pretty much seals the case that it wasn't what it purported to be. However: What I was getting at is that no matter where it came from, getting the actual intended meaning of the message right should be the first item of business, then what it was intended to be used for. In this case: The whole idea that "people say we've ended up helping the foreign agenda" or whatever the phrase was, is essentially nationalist, if I could put it in a nutshell, while the Shura Council reply, "that's just what you'd expect to hear from agents of the white man and the Safavid" is essentially takfiiri. In the US public discourse, the nationalists practically don't exist, and it was for that reason that I found skimming over that part of the thing disturbing. Regardless of whether this was said by a party A, or by party B pretending to be party A, the question is the same: What the hell are they talking about ? I think it's a mistake to always say: O we already know that.