The Islamic Army on al-Arabiya

The January 18 episode of 'Death Makers' on the Saudi-owned Arab TV station al-Arabiya focused on the Islamic Army of Iraq has generated a bit of controversy. The program began from the premise that the IAI, one of the largest and most important of the 'nationalist-jihadist' insurgency factions, is trying to move out from the shadows.  As part of that effort, according to host Rima Saleh, Abu Azzam al-Tamimi, presented as a 'former leader of the IAI' on the transcript but as 'one of the leaders of the Islamic Army' on the air, agreed to sit down on camera.  The program acknowledges the IAI's cooperation with the US, presents the Awakenings as a product of the resistance factions (not really of the tribes), and argues that combating the Iranian presence and not al-Qaeda was the main reason for the decision to align with the US and establish the Awakenings.  Whether any of this is true has become something of a contentious topics in certain circles. 

The Islamic Army immediately issued a lengthy statement disowning Abu Azzam, denying that he had ever had a relationship with the IAI in any capacity.  Its statement blasts al-Arabiya for serving as an American propaganda outlet, and implies that the program is just an information operation aimed at blackening the name of the Resistance.  It denies having any relationship with the Awakenings project and maintains its adherance to the jihad against the American occupation, and denies having any negotiations with the US. And it rejected the distinction between American and Iranian occupations, arguing that the "Safavid" occupation came on the backs of the American, and that the resistance fought them both.  All typical of the IAI's public rhetoric... though not necessarily its reality.   

The most significant part early in the program came when Abu Azzam deflected questions about the foreign financing of the insurgency, saying that the factions didn't need a great deal of financial support.  The nature of armed resistance in Iraq differed from other places, he said, since everybody already had weapons left over from the Iraqi Army and munitions were easily raided from old Army installations.   He denied that they had engaged in kidnapping or extortion for funds, although he allowed that al-Qaeda might have done so.  Iraq was a wealthy country, he said, and the insurgency enjoyed great support, so there was no need for significant external funding.  That sounds like something which would please Saudis who have been accused of financing the insurgency and which makes the IAI look very decent and patriotic; I'm dubious on quite a few points in this section.  It's somewhat interesting here that the al-Arabiya transcript is headlined "Is the financing of the resistance domestic or foreign?" - suggesting that despite all of the interesting material to be discussed in a moment, this was the important takeaway point for them. 

Most observers will likely be more interested by his comments about al-Qaeda.  He claimed that there had never been any real relationship between the resistance factions and al-Qaeda beyond limited tactical coordination back when the sole focus of the resistance was the American occupation. But, in the now familiar story, AQ departed from the national path [al-tariq al-watani] and lost all support. He described al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization because of its killing of innocent Iraqis, but at the same time, he still had hopes for the Iraqi members of al-Qaeda (as opposed to the hated non-Iraqis). His main arguments against al-Qaeda focused on its foreign leadership: he scornfully dismissed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as "non-Iraqi personalities working on Iraqi soil."   He would only work with Iraqis, not Arabs, and he claimed that none of the major factions accepted Zarqawi or Muhajir or any other non-Iraqi leader.  When asked about the current Emir of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, he grew somewhat cagey - he suggested that AQI had been desperate to find an Iraqi face for its organization (which supports the American version) but didn't suggest that he was an "actor".  He also claimed that Baghdadi had been imprisoned and under interrogation in an American prison for months.    Again, for what it's worth, this emphasis on the foreign leadership of AQI fits comfortably within the current US talking points and the current Saudi line. 

Abu Azzam seemed far more interested in talking about Iran's perfidous influence in Iraq. He said clearly and repeatedly, with considerable passion, that concern with Iranian intervention was the number one reason that the IAI and other factions chose to work with the American forces.   Asked directly whether the decision to align with the US was related to the turn against al-Qaeda, he said absolutely not.  Iraqis reject occupation in any form, whether American or Iranian, he said, but the factions consider the Iranian intervention more threatening than the American because it is permanent.  Iranian influence was pervasive in the government and the opposition, in al-Qaeda (!) and the enemies of al-Qaeda, in every region and every community. When the extent of Iranian influence became clear during the government of Ibrahim Jaafari (which ended in May 2006), he said, the leaders of the insurgency began rethinking their strategy- and that's when they began to talk about a truce with the American forces.   

He said that the Awakenings were the product of the resistance's year long dialogue with the Americans beginning in June 2006, sparked by their strategic decision to refocus their efforts against Iran.  Al-Qaeda and the 'tribal leaders' like Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha play no role whatsoever in his account (which begins months before the AQI atrocities which dominate the 'official version' of the Anbar Salvation Council's birth).  He waved away distinctions between the tribes and the insurgency - where, he asked, do you think the insurgency came from except from the tribes?    Many insurgency faction leaders now lead Awakenings, and the Awakenings forces in Baghdad and its surroundings and in the Western areas are the resistance.   The Awakenings are not tribal, in this account, other than that the resistance always had tribal foundations and those interlinkages continue.   We don't want the Awakenings to turn into militias, he said, and we have constantly asked to be incorporated into the armed forces and police.   But to this point the government has refused, and they grow impatient.   The Iraqi government still treats the factions as terrorist organizations despite all they have done working with the US, he complained.  And while he didn't call the Iraqi government part of the 'Iranian occupation,' one could draw inferences.

Al-Arabiya has frequently promoted the Awakenings, interviewing its figures often and airing sympathetic coverage (one of the points in support of the frequently aired but hard to document thesis of Saudi patronage for the Awakenings).  This program stands out because of its hyper-explicit linking of the Islamic Army and the armed resistance with the Awakenings.  That could be an attempt to strengthen the position of the Awakenings by giving it the imprimatur of the "moderate, patriotic resistance" and deflecting criticisms that they are American puppets.   It could also be an attempt to help the Islamic Army and other factions to enter into the public political process  - although the Islamic Army's forceful denunciation of the program undermines that possibility.  Or it could be an attempt to undermine the IAI by publicizing claims about its cooperation with the American - as suggested by the IAI's angry public response. 

Whether Abu Azzam al-Tamimi is who he says he is and his account should be given credence seem to me to be open questions.   The IAI's denial is politically significant but not decisive, it seems to me, since it has often publicly denied things which are widely reported to be happening.   It's all murky and ambiguous, as these things tend to be, and all we can really do at this point is speculate about the significance of the broadcast.  I'm just throwing it out there as one more data point for observers to take into account and mull over.   

Comments

[LT Nixon]

So they allied with us to battle Iran?!? The fun never stops in this place.

[Zathras]

What if any reaction to this interview has there been from Iraqi Shiite sources?

Iranian influence must certainly be a factor within Shiite political factions and elements of the Iraqi government. However, one might expect many Shiites to view fears of Iran expressed by Sunni Arabs as -- at a minimum -- disingenuous, statements of men who equate Iraqi patriotism with Sunni Arab suppression of Shiites. The narrative suggested here about insurgent violence against Iraqi civilians (again, primarily Shiite) is also one Iraqi Shiite might not believe.

But those are merely inferences, and I'd really be interested to know if the al-Arabiya interview has generated any response from a Shiite source.

[Derfel64]

It seems to me that the Awakenings were a low and mid-level movement, which the Islamic Army leadership being a decentralized organization like the rest of the insurgency could not control. Or perhaps the leadership aproves of the awakenings, but does not direct it anyway.

Proof of this would be in that the Islamic Army is still reportedly fighting in some places, its Mosul branch split from it and pledged to continue fighting. Mosul still is wracked by an insurgency even though Iraqi army and police presence there is very heavy. An awakening movement was announced back in september but it hasn´t had much of an effect. In fact i just read in Iraqslogger that the Islamic Army commander for Mosul was killed with silenced pistols in the center of the city, and (some iraqi paper provided the info) he was killed because now the Islamic State is committing the same errors and forcing everybody to join it. I´m sorry i cannot access the full info in iraqslogger.

There´s also evidence from a blogger in Adhamiya, that the Awakening thing wasn´t coordinated from the top, and much less by the insurgents! In Adhamiya all insurgent factions pledged to get rid of their "bad" members, change their behavior, re-allow shiites in the neighborhood and reconstruct the place in general. This wasn´t reported in the western press, but actually the Awakening arrived a week or so later!And if they almost didn´t have to fight for the place it was because the insurgents withdrew or simply laid low, they didn´t "wrest from the hands of al-Qaida" anything.

It seems to me that insurgents may be saying the truth when they say that they would like to continue attacks on US forces, but they cannot continue doing so because they would clash with awakenings. The awakenings and insurgents may have a "friendly" relationship and co-exist peacefully, but they are not the same (the sheer number of CLCs is much larger than the insurgency), and for the moment the insurgents are out of job.

This happened, in my opinion, simply because people had had enough. Kamal Abu Risha was somewhat candid when he said that "there came a moment when we couldn´t distinguish between resistance and terrorism", the level of mayhem and constant bombings and fighting, with some self-proclaimed mujahideen subjugating everybody else, simply broke the people. Anbaris jumped on the opportunity they had to rise against the extremists (earlier attempts to form neighborhood militias by sheiks had been disarmed by americans) - and, once they´d kicked out takfiris, they found out they liked the calm that followed and could tolerate US presence.

And of course, many awakening or CLC leaders may now find out that carving a fiefdom is a better future than fighting the US - that, in fact, fighting the US will put them in the spotlight. Better to lower their heads and quietly steal whatever their can and kill the occasional dissenter, like many militias have done in Congo and countless other conflicts. Occasionally violence will flare up, and of course these groups will employ Mahdi Army-style rethoric about the occupation, how they kicked out americans and now mujahideen are in charge. But they´ll just become the thugs running the neighborhood.

The various factions will never allow a strong central government to come in with an army and disarm everybody - much less in a place with so much mistrust and recent mass killing. So "power-sharing" will indeed take place, and rather naturally and informally - except that not among the iraqi people, but between the various warlords nominally represent a sect or a neighborhood, and a weak, factionalized central government. They will more or less agree, Basra-style, in that SMUGGLING OIL IS A BETTER IDEA THAN BLOWING UP PIPELINES.

If you have time and interest, read about democracy and nation-building in violent societies (James L. Payne) and specially "criminal warfare" by John Mueller (this guy is a genius).

It is worthy of mention that many in the awakening itself, when interviewed, speak badly of the US military and praise "the national honest resistance", which in their opinion is the cause why the US is now planning to withdraw, some even claim the awakenings are the resistance itself which has just morphed.

In other places the uprising may have been precipitated by the Islamic State´s disastrous attempt to impose itself by force. In late 2006 and specially early 2007 there were a lot of reported things that hadn´t happened in earlier years - killing people for not shaving their beards, attacking other insurgent factions and the like. But the past cause will be of matter mostly to historians and we cannot know with certainty, anyway. What matters is the future. (I don´t think that formal political reconcilation, in the form of passing some famous laws and accepting some militias into the security forces, matters much either)

Bottom line is: Awakenings aren´t a sign that "iraqi people" (or specifically sunnis) have "turned away from violence" but exactly the opposite. They are signs that violence has become, or perhaps has always been, acceptable to get to power. Warlord power-sharing is inherently an unstable, violent, undemocratic way of government, just look at Basra. Still, i don´t think we´re going to see the kind of massive bloodshed seen in 2006 and 2007. War will just quietly fade away.

(this is funny because it´s also pretty much the same situation as in Darfur now - and George Clooney is crying that we send troops there in order to "stop the genocide")

Still, now that internal fighting is receding, i think the US presence will be put on the spotlight. I think that eventually the insurgents will reassert themselves (probably attacking the US out of the populated and urban areas where the Awakenings are), and that will be the main cause of conflict. The US could still make yet another catastrophic blunder and give iraqis more and more fighting instead of quietly and quicly pulling out - the guys at the top seem determined to stay in Iraq forever!

Two other things. This could be already happening, perhaps in Arab Jabour/Salman Pak which has been for several months a focus for Awakenings (there are about 30,000 of them in the Triangle of Death area), and the place hasn´t seen much violence, sectarian or of any kind recently, but still regularly sees attacks on US forces. It seems that the Awakenings just stay in an area and allow insurgents to operate, as long as they don´t give trouble and don´t threaten to take over.

And, the Mahdi Army is smarter than the Islamic State guys. They didn´t go crazy when awakenings started to appear in their areas in and around Baghdad and, instead, they´re "selectively killing" a few of them but allowing the movement to go on. (Mahdi Army militiamen have also stopped roaming the city ni search of sunnis, alcohol vendors and the like. In my opinion this is due to the ceasefire and self-restraint rather than US-iraqi security, there were pretty nasty clashes in Washash, right in the face of everybody when a Mahdi leader was killed and the rest sought revenge).

So unless US soldiers begin to be killed in significant numbers again, the coming months will probably be very boring for us.

[saeed uri]

We need feed back on Egypt and the its future after the bringing down of the wall! Check out my blog, would like to hear your thoughts.

[Mike Honcho]

I met Abu Azzam and his deputies. They are who they say they are!