Introduction

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a jihadist group of predominantly Sunni fighters that rose to prominence in the ashes of the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, has been singled out as a central threat to international efforts to pacify and stabilize Iraq. Pentagon officials have publicly linked the militant group with the most high-profile terrorist strikes and suicide bombings there, and in an April 2007 speech, General David H. Petraeus, then top U.S. commander in the country, called AQI "probably public enemy No. 1" for U.S. forces. After years of near-constant attention from Washington, including a series of targeted strikes against the group's leadership, AQI's ability to carry out attacks in Iraq has diminished significantly. But AQI remains a potent force which, according to a December 2009 Pentagon assessment (PDF), "has transitioned from an insurgent group to a narrow organization focusing on periodic spectacular terrorist attacks."

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Although AQI's leadership and operational capabilities have weakened, attacks have remained consistent: By the fall of 2009, bombings targeting structures of state authority were occurring approximately every ninety days, according to Brett McGurk, an Iraq expert and former National Security Council official in the Bush administration. Following the March 7, 2010, national elections, AQI attacks have again increased and now appear to be targeting civilians. Analysts believe a resurgent AQI poses significant challenges to the Obama administration's plans for drawing down to fifty thousand troops by August 2010, and achieving a total withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011.

Origins

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, also known 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. 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. After being released from a Jordanian prison in 1999, Zarqawi reportedly commanded volunteers in Afghanistan before fleeing to northern Iraq in 2001. There he joined with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), where he led Ansar's Arab contingent. Many analysts say it's this group, and not al-Qaeda, that 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 2004, when Zarqawi 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) al-Qaeda expert Brian Fishman in 2006. Fishman, formerly with the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy, says the relationship eventually broke down when Zarqawi ignored al-Qaeda instructions to stop attacking Shiite cultural sites.

Leadership

However tenuous the relationship between Zarqawi and bin Laden, 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. But it did not spell its end. Instead, it was an awakening. "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. While an al-Qaeda statement on an Islamist Web site named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as the group's new chief, controversy quickly followed. Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad days after Zarqawi's death that Muhajir was really Abu Ayyub al-Masri, a former confidant of top al-Qaeda figure Ayman al-Zawahiri. Supporters and various Islamist websites appeared to contradict the appointment of al-Muhajir, suggesting other AQI-connected leaders were jockeying for control. They included AQI's deputy emir Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Iraqi, and Abdallah bin Rashid al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Mujahidin Shura Council. The confusion over the group's leadership, Fishman noted in 2006, "demonstrates how Zarqawi's death was a significant blow to AQI." (U.S. military officials later corrected course, conceding that the Egyptian al-Muhajir was also known as al-Masri.)

Since Zarqawi's death, the organization has become splintered and decentralized. Additional AQI offshoots include the Islamic Army of Iraq, a Sunni-led group that numbers around fifteen thousand members, and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a Sunni extremist group named for the post-World War I uprising against Britain's colonial occupation. In addition to AQI, dozens of other unaffiliated extremist groups, armed tribes, and criminal gangs operate (RFE/RL). (Similar trends have been observed with al-Qaeda central in Afghanistan, as affiliated networks of al-Qaeda-linked fighters have arisen in Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere).

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. Experts believe ISI was formed to strengthen AQI's credentials as a domestic movement. But Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the reported new head of ISI, was at the time declared fictitious by the U.S. military. Analysts suggested al-Baghdadi was a persona actually created by al-Masri to give foreign-led AQI activities the illusion of Iraq-born legitimacy. Army Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said in July 2007 that al-Masri "was essentially swearing allegiance to himself since he knew that Baghdadi was fictitious and a creation of his own." Further complicating AQI's status were erroneous reports in October 2006 and again in May 2007 that al-Masri himself had been killed. According to a Washington Post interview with an AQI leader in Anbar in July 2008, al-Masri left Iraq for either Afghanistan or the border areas of Pakistan in July 2008. If he did leave, he eventually returned; Iraqi and American officials announced in April 2010--and AQI eventually confirmed (WashPost)--that al-Masri and Baghdadi were 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."

Nevertheless, AQI has remained active in and around Mosul and lethal throughout Iraq. The group has adapted to the improved security situation by recruiting within Iraq and planning large-scale--although less frequent--attacks. AQI's targets over the past two years have primarily been government institutions, Iraqi security forces, and Shia civilians. A report (PDF) from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point argues that increased marginalization of Iraq's tribal Sunnis could strengthen AQI, and the group will continue to instigate for sectarian war, as exhibited by renewed violence targeting Iraqi citizens following the March 2010 elections.

Foreign Fighters

The most heated and enduring question about AQI is the origin and allegiance of its fighters. Few doubt the group includes a foreign element, but debate on the numbers and countries of origin has persisted since the U.S.-launched invasion of Iraq. Former President George W. Bush accused the group of being connected to al-Qaeda leadership based in Pakistan's tribal areas, and he used this argument as a central reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein. In July 2007 he reiterated (NYT) this during a speech to military personnel in South Carolina. That same month, Brigadier General Bergner, then the U.S. military's chief spokesman in Iraq, said AQI was responsible for 80 percent to 90 percent of the country's suicide bombings, many carried out by foreigners. Former Iraq analyst Ridolfo says as many as 60 percent of the fighters are thought to be from Saudi Arabia, and likely cross the border into Iraq from Syria.

Expert estimates on the number of foreign fighters among Iraqi insurgent groups range from a few hundred to over three thousand. Total AQI numbers have been estimated at over ten thousand. Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Syria, and Yemen were among the top suppliers of non-Iraqi militants to Iraq as of September 2005, according to data from the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index (PDF). In August 2007, between forty to sixty foreign fighters entered Iraq each month, though U.S. military officials say foreigners still account for the majority of suicide bombers. Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, writes (PDF) that AQI insurgents, along with other foreign fighters, "entered Sunni-inhabited central Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, from the Kurdish controlled north" and elsewhere in the Middle East. Although foreign fighters have continued to come across the border into Iraq, the numbers have dropped--in June and July 2008, for example, U.S. commanders estimated the flow to be approximately thirty to forty fighters per month.

Critics of the "foreign fighter" assessment maintain the bulk of AQI operatives are disenfranchised Iraqis, including Sunnis shut out from the Shiite-led government. Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East Project, says AQI has "deep pockets and has been a magnet for disaffected Iraqi youths who have lost faith in their tribal elders or former-regime commanders." Hiltermann says AQI has managed to recruit inside Iraq with intimidation, money, and brutality. "By attacking populations it considers unbelievers (Shiites, Yazidis), it has succeeded in polarizing Iraqi society along sectarian lines, and to kick-start civil war in 2005." The Washington Post reports that 2006 brought "dramatic changes" to AQI membership, shifting it from a predominantly foreign force to an "overwhelmingly Iraqi organization." Pentagon analysts have come to a similar conclusion (PDF).

AQI’s Staying Power

The Pentagon has captured dozens of senior al-Qaeda leaders (PDF) 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.

A major force behind the drive to eliminate AQI has been the so-called "Anbar model," which brought about local ceasefires in Sunni-dominated tribal areas west of Baghdad. This model, says CFR Senior Fellow Stephen Biddle, sent the Sunni insurgency packing in many regions. "AQI brutalized its own prospective allies, especially Sunni tribes in Anbar, but also elsewhere in Iraq," Biddle says. "In the course of all that, they made themselves look like a bigger threat to the Sunni population in Iraq than us, or even than the Shiite government."

But although AQI's leadership and capabilities have weakened, the group has proven to be extremely adaptable (PDF): it has evolved into an indigenous organization recruiting primarily within Iraq. Pentagon analysts note that despite a diminished presence in capital, AQI "seeks to reestablish itself in Baghdad and the surrounding areas and maintains the ability and desire to carry out periodic [attacks] designed to cause high levels of casualties."

Funding

Also unclear is 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. 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).

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. The UN attack killed the world body's special envoy to Iraq, prompting the UN to withdraw.
• The 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, kicking off a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that some experts have called a de facto civil war.
• A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City that killed hundreds in November 2006, igniting further sectarian violence and retaliation.
• A series of car bomb attacks in August 2007 targeting Yazidi villages in northern Iraq that left as many as 700 dead, according to coalition forces. U.S. Air Force officials later announced the death of Abu Muhammad al-Afri, an alleged mastermind of the Yazidi strikes.
• AQI has also launched attacks outside Iraq. Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told lawmakers in July 2007 that the bombing of American-owned hotels in Amman, Jordan, in 2005 "appears to have been orchestrated by AQI" (PDF). AQI fighters who have seen action in Iraq have also been linked to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon where militants have clashed with Lebanese security forces, Benjamin said.
• During 2009, AQI carried out 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, there has been 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.