AMS: no comment

Muthana al-Dhari, the chairman of the media committee in Iraq's Association of Muslim Scholars recently gave an interview to al-Jazeera about the formation of the new Council of Ulema.  He denied that this Council posed a challenge to the AMS, saying that there is no alternative to the AMS and downplaying the significance of the Amman conference.   He also downplayed reports about divisions within the Sunni insurgency, in particular criticizing what he considered ill-informed speculation about the "Hamas-Iraq" announcement and the division of the 1920 Revolution Brigade.  The only reason I mention the interview here is an exchange towards the end of the conversation.  Al-Dhari gave locquacious (if noncommittal and evasive) answers to almost every question posed.  And then towards the end comes this exchange:

• Interviewer:  But there are now complaints from the Islamic army and resistance factions about the practices of the al-Qaeda organization and these complaints have recently surfaced into the open
• Dhari:  No comment.

That's an interesting "no comment" from the Association of Muslim Scholars.  Read in conjunction with Ansar al-Sunna's communique which I mentioned the other day (which seemed to call for Sunni unity and criticized both parties to the escalating conflict), it could suggest that at least some forces within the Sunni insurgency are still trying to prevent the conflict between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Islamic Army's alliance from getting out of hand.   It could also just mean that the conflict is so tense and sensitive right now that Dhari considered it above his pay grade, so to speak, and chose discretion.   I don't want to read too much into it, but I noticed it and thought it was kind of interesting. 

Comments

[Complusive Reader]

And then there is this from albasrah.net: "

Resistance in al-Fallujah arrests member of Ahmad Chelebi’s security service putting up false posters inciting Resistance groups against each other.

In a dispatch posted at 1:59 GMT on Saturday, Quds Press reported that sources close to the Iraqi Resistance had reported that members of the Islamic Army Iraqi Resistance organization had arrested an armed member of the militia forces loyal to CIA agent Ahmad Chelebi on Friday. The individual was caught posting notices purporting to have been issued by the Islamic State of Iraq – the al-Qa'idah organization in Iraq – attacking the Islamic Army.

Quds Press reported the Islamic Army source as saying that during Friday congregational prayers, an unknown individual was seen putting up a large poster on the wall of the al-Anbiya’ Mosque in southern al-Fallujah. The poster featured a picture supposed to be that of Islamic Army spokesman Ibrahim ash-Shamari in which his face did not appear. The caption on the poster read: "This is your leader soldiers of the Islamic Army, followed by a well-known line of poetry that says that "the sword brings truer information than books." The poster bore the signature of the Islamic State in Iraq.

The source said that after the worshippers left the mosque a clash almost erupted between the Islamic Army and Islamic State fighters. But Resistance men arrested a person as he tried to post another copy of the same poster on another mosque wall. Under questioning, he admitted to belonging to the private security forces of Ahmad Chelebi. The source quoted the prisoner as saying: "this operation is a part of a bigger operation aimed at starting a fire between the Islamic Army and the Islamic State in Iraq, beginning in al-Fallujah and then extending throughout al-Anbar province." The aim of the secret campaign, the prisoner said, was to exploit the differences that had arisen between the Islamic Army and al-Qa'idah in order to drive them against each other."

I wonder what came first: Real splits between the Resistance with al-Qaidah to be exploited by the CIA, or psy-ops by the CIA that factions of the Resistance are buying into and causing the divisions? Chicken or Egg question I guess.

[Rashad]

Completely off-topic, but I thought you would find Crooked Timber's analysis of anti-German WWII US comics fascinating.

http://crookedtimber.org/2007/04/15/is-that-a-coconut-in-your-arm-or-are-you-just-glad-to-see-me-15-centuries-of-german-perfidy-edition/

[Rashad]

Hmm, link got cut off. Here is a tinyurl for it.

http://tinyurl.com/2rnto3