Introduction

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a jihadist group of predominantly Sunni fighters, rose to prominence in the ashes of the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. The insurgency that followed provided the group with fertile ground on which to expand its power base and fight against foreign forces and their domestic supporters. AQI's ongoing campaign of terrorism, which peaked in 2006 and 2007, has diminished in recent years in the face of successful U.S. counterterrorism efforts and the Sunni tribal awakening. However, it remains a persistent menace to Iraqi stability. The complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in December 2011 and a brewing sectarian crisis in early 2012 have raised fears that AQI may be poised for resurgence. Some experts suggest government corruption and a lack of Sunni-Shiite reconciliation may push Iraq into becoming a failed state. AQI has attempted to exploit sectarian divisions through a string of attacks on Shiite targets in early 2012. Top U.S. intelligence officials have also brought attention to a flow of AQI fighters over the border into Syria where they will likely take up arms against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

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Origins

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, also referred to as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is a Sunni Muslim extremist group that seeks to sow civil unrest in Iraq, with the aim of establishing a caliphate--a single, transnational Islamic state based on sharia law. Established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Arab of Jordanian descent, AQI rose to prominence after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Zarqawi, after being released from a Jordanian prison in 1999, commanded volunteers in Herat, Afghanistan, before fleeing to northern Iraq in 2001. There he joined with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), a militant Kurdish separatist movement, where he led the group's Arab contingent. Many analysts say this group, not al-Qaeda, was the precursor of AQI.

Ahead of the 2003 invasion, U.S. officials made a case before the UN Security Council linking AQI with Osama bin Laden. But a number of experts say it wasn't until October 2004, when Zarqawi officially vowed obedience to the al-Qaeda leader, that the groups became linked. "For al-Qaeda, attaching its name to Zarqawi's activities enabled it to maintain relevance even as its core forces were destroyed [in Afghanistan] or on the run," observed (PDF) Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism fellow at the New America Foundation.

Zarqawi had prepared carefully for the invasion, according to a 2011 CSIS report, developing a four-pronged strategy (PDF) to defeat the coalition: isolate U.S. forces by targeting its allies; discourage Iraqi collaboration by targeting government infrastructure and personnel; target reconstruction efforts through high-profile attacks on civilian contractors and aid workers; and draw the U.S. military into a Sunni-Shiite civil war by targeting Shiites.

Two decisions made by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)--the transitional government established by the United States and its coalition partners--early in the U.S.-led occupation are often cited by some critics as factors that helped feed the insurgency and provide breeding ground for AQI. CPA order number one banned members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from all government positions; number two disbanded the Iraqi army and security services, creating hundreds of thousands of new coalition enemies, many of them armed.

Leadership

In July 2005, Bin Laden and his number two at the time, Ayman al-Zawahiri, believed AQI's increasingly sectarian attacks on Shiites would erode public support for al-Qaeda in the region, and questioned Zarqawi's strategy in written correspondence. Fishman says the relationship eventually broke down when Zarqawi ignored al-Qaeda instructions to stop attacking Shiite cultural sites. However tenuous the relationship between the al-Qaeda core and its Iraq affiliate, it ended on June 7, 2006, when a U.S. air strike killed the AQI founder. The hit, a victory for U.S. and Iraqi intelligence, marked a turning point for the organization.

"The group had to kind of reshape itself" to appeal to Iraqis, says Kathleen Ridolfo, a former Iraq analyst with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Zarqawi had run afoul of his own conscripts and drawn criticism for indiscriminate attacks on Iraqi civilians. Yet regrouping proved problematic amid apparent jockeying for control among various militant leaders. Since Zarqawi's death, the organization has become splintered and decentralized. In addition to AQI, several other Sunni extremist groups (Reuters) also operate in Iraq.

Other post-Zarqawi moves further clouded the group's operations. In 2006, AQI was believed to have helped establish the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups with similar aims as AQI (National Review). Experts believe ISI was formed to embody the "caliphate," or political arm, of AQI. But Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the reported new head of ISI, was at the time declared fictitious by the U.S. military (LWJ). Analysts suggested al-Baghdadi was a persona created by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, a former confidant of top al-Qaeda figure Zawahiri, to give foreign-led AQI activities the illusion of Iraq-born legitimacy. The confusion was finally put to rest in April 2010 when Iraqi and U.S. officials announced--and AQI eventually confirmed (WashPost)--that al-Masri and Baghdadi were both killed in an Iraqi-led raid southwest of Tikrit. Not only were they real, but U.S. officials said the leaders' deaths were "potentially devastating blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Shortly thereafter, an Iraqi from the town of Samarra, Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) was selected to lead AQI. The U.S. Department of State officially designated Baghdadi a terrorist in October 2011, and offers a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

Membership

The makeup of AQI has evolved greatly over the years, transitioning from a group with a significant ratio of foreign fighters--many drawn initially from Zarqawi's networks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and later merged with recruits from Syria, Iraq, and its neighbors--to a group dominated by native Iraqis. The Washington Post reported that 2006 marked a year of "dramatic changes" in AQI membership, shifting it from a predominantly foreign force to an "overwhelmingly Iraqi organization." The group has also declined significantly in number from previous estimates of roughly 15,000 beginning with the onset of the Sunni tribal backlash in 2006, with a drop in January 2007 with the arrival of the 20,000-strong U.S. troop "surge."According to CSIS, more than 11,000 AQI fighters were killed or captured by early 2008. As of November 2011, the U.S. military estimated AQI had 800 to 1,000 fighters remaining (NYT).

Staying Power

The Pentagon has captured dozens of senior AQI leaders in recent years, and American officials have long predicted the group's eventual demise. Ryan Crocker, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told reporters in October 2007 that "al-Qaeda simply is gone" (CSMonitor) from Fallujah, Ramadi, and other parts of Anbar province. In May 2008, CIA Director Michael Hayden similarly suggested (PDF) al-Qaeda was on the verge of defeat in Iraq.

Although AQI's leadership and capabilities have weakened, the group has proven to be extremely adaptable. In November 2011, the U.S. military's top spokesman in Iraq remarked on the resilience of AQI (NYT):"I cringe whenever anybody makes a pronouncement that al-Qaeda is on its last legs."

In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, AQI has tried to exploit the widening Sunni-Shiite political divide through a string of attacks in early 2012 targeting Shiites. Some analysts say heavy-handed actions taken by the Shiite-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki have alienated many Sunnis and provided AQI with new recruitment propaganda (Washington Times).

Meanwhile, civil unrest in neighboring Syria is reportedly drawing AQI fighters across the border to join the rebellion against the minority Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad, who has continued his crackdown on opposition protesters despite international condemnation. In February 2012, U.S. intelligence officials said they believed al-Qaeda is executing most of the high-profile attacks on Syrian military forces, including bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. At the same time, the migration has meant a decrease in violence in parts of Iraq (CSMonitor) along the Syrian border, such as in Ninewa province.

Fishman says al-Qaeda may be reversing its logistical lines, redirecting resources from Iraq to Syria in order to exploit the fight against the "apostate" Assad (PBS) for its own purposes. "AQI wants to demonstrate that al-Qaeda is part of a resistance movement and a legitimate player in the overthrow of a [Syrian] regime that is rightly understood as tyrannical," he says. Fishman warns that even a small al-Qaeda presence could "have a very destabilizing effect," encouraging more moderate elements of the regime--those who have otherwise been willing to compromise--to take up arms against the rebels.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, RAND's Seth G. Jones says there is also cause to fear a marriage of convenience between al-Qaeda and Iran, who, despite the Sunni-Shiite division, are united in their opposition to U.S.-Israel policy in the region.

Funding

It is unclear how the U.S.-led crackdown has affected the group's funding for arms and training. Experts say supporters in the region, including those based in Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, provided the bulk of past funding. Prior to his death, a great deal of operational funding was provided by Zarqawi's support network. AQI has also received financial support from Tehran (despite the fact that al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization), according to documents confiscated in December 2006 from Iranian Revolutionary Guards operatives in northern Iraq. But the bulk of al-Qaeda's financing, experts say, comes from internal sources like smuggling and crime. AQI has relied in recent years on funding and manpower from internal recruits (PDF). Online correspondence from the group in mid-2011 indicated a particularly grim financial situation for AQI. A web administrator solicited new fundraising ideas (AP) and appealed to potential benefactors for money to "feed the widows and the orphans" of resistance.

Major Attacks Attributed to AQI

High-profile attacks on civilians, military, and religious targets are the hallmark of AQI. Following are some of the more notable attacks attributed to the group:

• August 2003: Bombings of the Jordanian embassy, UN headquarters in Baghdad, and a Shiite mosque in Najaf.
• November 2005: Bombing of American-owned hotels (BBC) in Amman, Jordan, where sixty were killed.
• February 2006: Bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samara, Shiite Islam's holiest shrine. This bombing caused no injuries but severely damaged the holy site's golden dome.
• November 2006: A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Shiite Sadr City that killed hundreds.
• August 2007: A series of car bomb attacks targeting Yazidi villages in northern Iraq that left as many as 700 dead, according to coalition forces.
• During 2009: Attacks on structures of state authority as well as high-profile hotels housing Western journalists. These attacks included bombings of the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs in August, bombings targeting the Baghdad Provincial Council and Ministry of Justice in October, and bombings of government buildings in Baghdad in December.
• Following the March 2010 national elections: An increase in attacks on Iraqi civilians, including five major bombings of civilian apartment buildings and execution-style killings of civilians in Arab Jabour and Wasit province.
• October-November 2010: A siege of the Roman Catholic Church in Baghdad (CSMonitor) killing over forty hostages. Two days later, ninety were killed when more than fifteen car bombs exploded in the capital.
• December 2011: More than sixty, mostly Shiite, killed in AQI attacks (CBS) in retaliation for the Iraqi government's execution of Sunni prisoners.
• January-February 2012: Several bombs explode in primarily Shiite areas of Iraq, killing at least seventy-three (Reuters) in early January. Similar bombings (AP) killed at least fifty-five in late February.
• March 2012: More than twenty-five separate explosions bearing the mark of AQI kill nearly fifty in eight cities across Iraq (Reuters), including in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.