If Al-Qaeda is really on the retreat in Iraq as US top brass say, why is the organisation still able to create havoc in the country, asks Salah Nasrawi While senior US military commanders continue to insist that Al-Qaeda is no longer a threat in Iraq, recent waves of attacks clearly show that the group is still determined and able to strike at will. The celebratory assessment by the US generals seems also to stand in sharp contrast with US concerns about the network's regional affiliates, such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has also been able to wreak havoc in the region. In the most recent assessment of the Al-Qaeda network in Iraq, General David Perkins, commander of the US Army's 4th Infantry Division, said that the group's affiliate in Iraq had been severely weakened. Perkins attributed the "dramatic decrease" in the group's activities to "a money squeeze, internal squabbling, a shortage of volunteer suicide bombers and effective Iraqi efforts to control the border with Syria." Perkins was echoing Admiral Mike Mullen, retiring chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said last month that a string of setbacks for Al-Qaeda in Iraq had left the group "devastated". US military officials have also cited a sharp drop in violence in recent months as evidence of their estimation of a decline in Al-Qaeda's attacks. They also claim that Iraqi security forces are taking the lead against Al-Qaeda activities, due to sustained training provided by the US army. However, critics note that killings and attacks still happen almost daily in Iraq, as US troops prepare to withdraw more than eight years after the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. On Monday, gunmen stormed a police station in the town of Al-Baghdadi in the western Anbar province of the country, taking police officers as well as civilians hostage. At least three people were killed when soldiers later stormed the station in an attempt to end the standoff. The Anbar province is a hotbed for Al-Qaeda activities, and the group often attacks police and military there. On Friday, at least 18 people were killed and 63 wounded when a car bomb exploded among mourners crowding into a Shia funeral in the city of Hilla south of Baghdad. Earlier, on 12 September, gunmen killed 22 pilgrims from the holy Shia city of Kerbala in an ambush in the Anbar province. A few days later, and while Kerbala was still reeling from the deadly hijacking, four explosions struck the city killing at least 10 people. Two days later a car bomb targeting a restaurant killed 15 people and wounded 46 more in the southern Shia city of Hamza, south of Baghdad. The attacks have left Iraq's Shias feeling hunted by Al-Qaeda, with many accusing government forces of failing to provide security in the country. Al-Qaeda has also been targeting Sunni government-backed militiamen, known as Sahwa, or Awakening Councils, accusing them of being traitors to the Americans and the Shia-led government. On Sunday, gun attacks and bombings killed four Sahwa militiamen in two roadside bombs in the town of Al-Mishadah, north of Baghdad. The town was a stronghold of Al-Qaeda at the height of Iraq's Sunni insurgency in 2006 and 2007, before Sunni tribesmen sided with the US military against the organisation. Last month, the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), Al-Qaeda's affiliate group in Iraq, claimed responsibility for 35 attacks in August that killed dozens of people, mostly in the Shia-dominated south and centre of the country. In a statement posted on one of the group's websites, it said that eight attacks had been carried out on one day, 15 August, in a clear message of defiance. In a speech in August, ISI spokesman Abu Mohamed Al-Adnani said that the group was growing stronger "despite difficulties and challenges" and that it was training and sheltering foreign fighters. He threatened to attack Sunni militia members who turned against the insurgency and joined forces with the US military and Shia-led government and if they did not return to the ranks. One way to judge the assessment by the US generals of Al-Qaeda's strength in Iraq is to measure the death toll from sectarian-motivated violence. Some 185 Iraqis were killed and 364 wounded in September in such attacks, according to government figures. This is a large number of casualties for a nation trying to avoid sectarian war. Observers believe that Al-Qaeda may have regained its capacity for the kind of violence that plagued Iraq at the height of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007. The kidnapping and killing of Shia pilgrims and the ferocious bombing of their cities are examples of the strategy Al-Qaeda is using to cause bloodshed that could push the country into a new round of civil strife, such observers say. Some also believe that the so-called "Sunni triangle" in the centre of Iraq, which includes the northern province of Nineveh as well as Anbar, Salaheddin and Diyala provinces, is acting as an incubator for Al-Qaeda. These provinces shelter Al-Qaeda fighters and fund its operations through extortion and other crimes, observers say. Iraqi officials also disagree with the American judgement, saying that Al-Qaeda is still dangerous and hundreds of its fighters are still at large. Lieutenant General Hussein Kamal, Iraqi deputy interior minister for intelligence, told the news agency Reuters recently that Al-Qaeda fighters had regrouped in the country and that a third generation of Al-Qaeda fighters was working to reorganise itself in Iraq. On Wednesday, the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat reported that Al-Qaeda has opened new training bases in the desert on the border with Syria. It quoted security officials in Anbar as saying new recruits have joined the group which is using caves in Iraq's Western Plataea as headquarters and posts for logistic support. Other Iraqi security officials said that the organisation was gaining strength in the Iraqi capital and in nearby southern districts. As US troops prepare to leave the country by the end of the year, the US assessment of the strength of Al-Qaeda is highly significant, as it sets off a debate over whether Iraqi armed forces are capable of containing the group alone, along with radical Shia militias. The Iraqi government has been negotiating whether some US troops should stay on in the country as trainers past the 2011 withdrawal date. On the face of it, the American assessment makes little sense, even if US generals are eager to celebrate their success against Al-Qaeda before the US forces' withdrawal. However, as the military adage goes, "war is a trick," and the US generals, who are planning for the endgame in Iraq, may be bluffing in the statements they have made. Another possibility is that talk about a diminishing role for Al-Qaeda in Iraq is intended to add to successes chalked up by US President Barack Obama in killing the group's leader Osama bin Laden and Anwar Al-Awlaki. The talk may be intended to benefit Obama in next year's US presidential elections. However, Al-Qaeda has proven resilient in the past, most notably after the killings of its founder, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in June 2006, and of his successor, the Egyptian Abu Ayoub El-Masri, in April last year. The group seems still to be intact, and it is growing faster than ever as a result of preparations to exploit the security vacuum in Iraq after the US withdrawal, as well as chaos in the Middle East triggered by the Arab revolutions. It is believed by some commentators that Al-Qaeda's attacks are aimed at reversing the position of the Sunnis in Iraq by provoking war with the Shias in a strategy designed to challenge the latter for control of the country following the US withdrawal. While the Sunnis could be terrified at the prospect of being put at the mercy of the Shias, they also fear that Al-Qaeda's tactics will re-ignite sectarian conflict and put the Shias on the offensive. The geopolitical problem with the Al-Qaeda scenario is evident: it will turn Iraq into a quagmire, inviting the country's neighbours to intervene amid the chaos that the group hopes to be able to exploit.
