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| Abu Musab Al Zarqawi |
Today, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is a shell of the organization that was once led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the one that beheaded hostages on camera and controlled significant portions of the country.
Although the group still conducts attacks across Iraq — typically roadside bombs, suicide bombings and assassinations — the number of violent incidents the group has been involved in has plummeted since the height of the sectarian war in 2006.
“We hear about a few operations here or there of Al Qaeda trying to send a message that it is still in” Iraq, said Samir al-Mahemdi, a lawyer in Falluja and an expert on extremist groups.
Although Bin Laden helped create Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, he never had direct control over it and provided little aid to the group other than his public statements and moral support.
“Certainly not as much as they had hoped,” said Ken Pollack, an expert on national security issues for the Brookings Institution.
Sometimes, the failure to provide support created tensions. In 2005, Bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, chastised Mr. Zarqawi for killing civilians and Shiites because it hurt their movement’s image.
Mr. Zawahri, now seen as the successor to Bin Laden after he was killed by American forces on Sunday, later praised Mr. Zarqawi. And when Mr. Zarqawi was killed by the Americans in 2006, Bin Laden said Mr. Zarqawi had instructions to kill whoever supported the United States.
Mr. Pollack said that most of the support and financing for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia came from groups in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
“His death will not have a major impact, maybe just some loss of moral support,” Mr. Pollack said, referring to Bin Laden. “But they didn’t seem like they were drawing on their external support. They are in tough shape. They didn’t feel like they were getting a lot of help.”
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia reached its most destructive peak between 2004 and 2006, partly as a result of American policy choices, particularly the decision to prohibit most members of the former ruling Baath Party from serving in the government and armed forces, Mr. Pollack said.
“The United States drove the Sunnis into the arms of Al Qaeda because they felt alienated from the government and feared the Kurds and Shiites,” Mr. Pollack said. “We put a huge number of fighters in the hands of Al Qaeda, more numbers than they ever had.”
But Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s power began to wither in 2006 after many of the Sunni tribes began to chafe at the leadership of the Qaeda fighters. In what became known as the Awakening Movement, many of those Sunnis turned on their former colleagues and began fighting alongside the Americans in exchange for money and protection.
After Bin Laden’s death was announced, a cleric in Diyala Province with ties to Al Qaeda issued a fatwa “to kill every foreigner, whether they are an occupying solider, woman or child” inside Iraq, “no matter where they are,” said a commander with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
“Al Qaeda in Diyala will punish the American forces on the land of the province and there will be strikes against them as revenge for the killing of the father of the martyrs, Osama bin Laden,” said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
In anticipation of attacks from Al Qaeda in the wake of Bin Laden’s death, additional security forces patrolled Iraq’s streets on Monday.
A former member of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who joined the Awakening Movement said that he believed that in the coming weeks there would be increased attacks on American forces and Iraqi government buildings.
He said that he expected Al Qaeda to single out churches and Christians in Baghdad. He also said that Al Qaeda was likely to activate many of its sleeper cells.
A security expert in Baquba said that the death would have little impact on the Qaeda members who operate in his city because they work independently of Bin Laden and his agents. The expert, Jihad al-Bakery, said that the killing of Bin Laden was like “cutting off the head of a snake” but that the “poison still exists” in the minds of thousands of Qaeda followers.
