IRAQ - Neo-Salafi State Is A 'Sham'.

Spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner on July 18 told a press conference US troops had caught the top Iraqi man in al-Qaeda's Iraq network, Khaled al-Mashhadani, also known as "Abu Shahid", on July 4 and that the man previously believed to have held that distinction was a fictional creation. He said Mashhadani, captured in the northern city of Mosul, had given US forces information about an elaborate media operation which he had run, aimed at putting an "Iraqi face" on a network which Americans had frequently said was dominated by foreigners.

Bergner said Mashhadani was close to Abu Ayub al-Masri, an Egyptian head of al-Qaeda in Iraq (whom APS sources say is a nephew of al-Qaeda's No. 2 Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri). Bergner said al-Qaeda's Iraqi network's main link was to Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri. Al-Qaeda's communiques describe Masri as a "war minister" of the "Islamic State of Iraq" (ISI), headed by an activist of Iraqi descent known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. But Bergner said ISI was a fictional entity - a "virtual organisation in cyberspace" intended to "put an Iraqi face" on the network. He said Mashhadani had confessed that Baghdadi was a "fictional role" whose internet declarations were read by an actor with an Iraqi accent.

Instead, Bergner said, Mashhadani was the "most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaeda in Iraq network". He said Mashhadani had formerly been a member of Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna, another Neo-Salafi group active in Iraq, who subsequently joined al-Qaeda and helped direct their media operations, including setting up the ISI.

The US military had in the past said only 5% of al-Qaeda's membership was non-Iraqi. But they also suggested that the leadership was dominated by foreigners and was following an externally-imposed agenda rather than acting in the interests of Iraq's Sunni Arabs. The identity and whereabouts of the fictional Baghdadi has been the cause of confusion in the past. The Interior Ministry in March said he had been arrested, and then in May said he had been killed. Both reports were quickly denied by the US military.

Martin Navias of King's College in London says there is a physical connection between al-Qaeda central and al-Qaeda in Iraq. He cites a 2005 letter sent by Zawahiri to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader killed in a US air strike near Ba'quba in June 2006. That letter dealt with the goal to expel the US from Iraq and set up a Neo-Salafi caliphate.

Dozens of "senior" Qaeda men have been killed by US or Iraqi forces in the past three years with little long-term effects on the group's operations. On June 20, 2006, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell (Bergner's predecessor) said US forces had killed Mansur Suleiman al-Mashhadani in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, saying: "We do know that Shaikh Mansur was a key leader in al-Qaeda in Iraq with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials within that organisation". He described him as Zarqawi's right-hand man and a liaison between al-Qaeda and tribes in the area, adding: "We do think that his death will significantly continue to impact on the ability of this organisation to regenerate and organise itself". He said Shaikh Mansur was "multi-functional" with responsibilities including spiritual advice, recruitment, leadership and media operations.

The latest Mashhadani captured is also described as involved in media operations, and carried messages from bin Laden and Zawahiri to Masri. Bergner said: "There is a clear connection between al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda senior leadership outside Iraq".

The relationship between the two has been the subject of debate, with analysts saying the foreign-based leadership plays a minor role in day-to-day operations. Evan Kohlmann, author of a book on al-Qaeda, who closely tracks the propaganda of the group and similar Neo-Salafi units, says: "Of course there's some communication back and forth, but as it's been described to me, al-Qaeda in Iraq operates as a franchise...that's largely autonomous. What al-Qaeda does for them is provide cross-pollination of ideas, but not command and control". He says the group in Iraq has shown the ability to replace key leaders up until now, and does not expect that will change.

News of Mashhadani's arrest came at a time when the US intelligence community was warning that al-Qaeda central had successfully regrouped and that its operational and training abilities were at their greatest height since 9/11, creating fears it was now able to carry out attacks in either the US or Europe. Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, argues in a report on Iraq's Sunni insurgency that the direct links between al-Qaeda's foreign leadership and its network in Iraq are over-stated. He cites other US briefings which say 90% or more of the network's operatives are Iraqis and says the foreigners involved are not exclusively loyal to bin Laden, adding: "The foreign leadership listed has as many ties to the hard-line groups that have spun off (from) the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as to bin Laden per se".

Cordesman says most attacks in Iraq are not carried out by al-Qaeda, adding: "None of this means that the ISI-al-Qaeda does not play a critical role in the insurgency. Al-Qaeda's attacks do make up a highly effective 15% and probably do the most damage in pushing Iraq toward civil war. It does mean that ISI-al-Qaeda's activities must be kept in careful perspective, and that it does not dominate the Sunni insurgency".

Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry, says Iraqi forces had nothing to do with the capture of Mashhadani. He says Iraqi military officials knew he was dangerous but did not know he was as high-ranking as the Americans claim. As for al-Qaeda's role in Iraq, Gen. Khalaf says: "This organisation has little influence in Iraq. It's falling apart. Their presence in Iraq is becoming negligible". He adds that "their connection to...bin Laden is by name only. They do not take instructions from bin Laden. They are just inspired by him. Since they are on the run, the communication between them and al-Qaeda leadership outside is very difficult".

A Greater Neo-Salafi Threat: The release of a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report on July 17 saying al-Qaeda has regained pre-9/11 strength and is preparing for a major strike has sparked debate among American government officials and observers about the Bush foreign policy and counter-terrorism efforts. The NIE report indicates that al-Qaeda's rise has been bolstered by the Iraq war and the failure to counter extremism in Pakistan's tribal areas.

"The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland" report focuses on the next three years and is the first to review the potential for terrorist attacks exclusively in the US. The 16 US intelligence agencies began compiling the report last October and completed their assessment in June. Though it indicated that Hizbullah - the Iran-sponsored Shi'ite guerrilla organisation in Lebanon - may become a threat if the US takes action against Iran or seriously threatens or attacks this group, the majority of the report focused on the "rejuvenating effect the Iraq war has had on al-Qaeda".

For the last few years intelligence officials have suggested much of al-Qaeda's central leadership has been neutralised, and that the primary national security threat came from splinter groups bin Laden inspired but did not command. The July 17 report concludes that the same al-Qaeda which meticulously planned and executed 9/11 attacks is alive and well. Michael Scheuer, who formerly headed the CIA's bin Laden search team, commented: "This clearly says al-Qaeda is not beaten".

The NIE says al-Qaeda is preparing for a major strike against the US. It says it has intensified efforts to insert operatives in the US. But since 9/11, only a "handful" of senior al-Qaeda operatives have been discovered inside the US. The NIE also indicates that al-Qaeda will deploy nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons if they can acquire them. It says: "We assess that al-Qaeda's homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the US population. The group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices, and is innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles. We assess that al-Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability".

President Bush has defended his post-9/11 counter-terrorism policies by citing the absence of new attacks on US soil and arguing that terrorists in Iraq present a greater challenge to US interests. But The Washington Post says the new report has weakened Bush's argument, adding that his line of defence seemed to unravel a bit with the NIE concluding that al-Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" by re-establishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership.

These disclosures triggered a new round of criticism in the US from Democrats and others who say that the administration took its eye off the ball by invading Iraq without first destroying bin Laden's organisation in Afghanistan. Following the report's release, Bush said it indicated that al-Qaeda was "not nearly as strong as they were" before 9/11. Urging Americans to remain committed to the Iraq mission, Bush said Islamic terrorists "want us to leave parts of the world, like Iraq, so they can establish a safe haven from which to spread their poisonous ideology".

Democrats, however, argued that the report served as evidence the war in Iraq had only strengthened the ranks of groups like al-Qaeda. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, said: "I think it's clear evidence that Bush's claim that we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here was, and is, false. The threat here is increasing, and part of it relates to the strength of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is a threat that post-dates our military action in Iraq".

Other critics say the administration released the new report at a politically strategic time: when Congress is debating the Iraq war and Bush is making a bid for increased funding for the war effort. The Chicago Tribune says White House officials contend that the NIE report supports the president's belief that Iraq is "the central front" in the war on terror. Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of "The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror", says: "They are not averse to waving the red flag of al-Qaeda to say there is a big threat out there and to say we're working on it and we're the main agents of your safety". He adds: "I can only assume that there was a big interest in getting this NIE out sooner than later, so that people could say they were aware of the threat, and then if anything happens the administration could say, 'We were on top of it'".

White House aides and intelligence officials have blamed al-Qaeda's resurgence largely on the failure of Pakistan to police its tribal areas near the Afghan border. In 2006 Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf brokered a ceasefire with tribal leaders, a move which was originally supported or at least accepted by Bush. Under that deal, Gen. Musharraf was supposed to withdraw government security forces from the region, and tribal leaders were supposed to police their areas and stop cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The ceasefire recently fell apart, and Musharraf will send troops into the tribal area again. However, observers are pessimistic about his ability to regain control of the region.

The report says al-Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most visible affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the US. The BBC reports that Iraq may have provided al-Qaeda with battle-hardened operatives to carry out missions within the US. Questioned on whether the war in Iraq had provided an ideal training ground for terrorists, Frances Townsend, Bush's homeland security adviser, conceded that al-Qaeda might try to make use of its contacts in Iraq. But she said extremists were also gaining experience in other places, such as Pakistan and North Africa.

Kirkuk Hit: A Neo-Salafi suicide bomber in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk on July 16 crashed his truck into a compound which includes offices of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdishtan (PUK), killing 85 people and wounding more than 185 others. Many victims were women and children, shopping in the busy market next to the political offices, who were engulfed by a large fireball.

Hours later, men wearing Iraqi military uniforms stormed into Duwailiyiah village in the adjacent Diyala Province and killed 29 Shi'ite men, women and children. Iraqi security official Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Umiri said the gunmen, Neo-Salafis, surrounded the victims and fired into the crowd. Duwailiyiah is a remote village north of Ba'quba, and the bodies of some victims were "desecrated" before the attackers fled in new Iraqi police trucks.

The Kirkuk attack was the latest to stoke fears that intensified US raids in Baghdad may have led Neo-Salafis to move their operations to areas they can attack more easily. The explosion flung bodies throughout the outdoor market and left some of the 185 wounded shouting wildly for help as they ran through the streets with their clothes and hair on fire. Local police officials said 9,000 pounds of explosives were used, gouging a crater into the ground several metres deep while destroying buildings and scores of shops and cars. One of the buildings belonged to the PUK, which controls south-eastern Kurdistan. There was no report on casualties among PUK members.

A witness was a few hundred metres away as the truck rammed into the perimetre of the compound and exploded. Stunned and slightly wounded, he said he watched the fireball "devour the cars passing on the road". He said one passenger bus burst into flames, adding: "The whole bus was on fire, and the passengers were jumping up and down inside". It was the single deadliest post-invasion blast in Kirkuk, a city rich in oil and ethnicity.

The enormous payload in the attack was similar to that of a July 7 blast in Amerli, a poor Shi'ite Turkmen village 50 miles south of Kirkuk, which killed dozens of families who were crushed as their fragile clay-walled homes collapsed. No group claimed the July 16 blast in Kirkuk. But it bore the signs of Neo-Salafis and reinforced fears that al-Qaeda militants who eluded newly fortified US units closer to Baghdad turned their lethal focus to places far from the five-brigade troop buildup. The additional troops have been deployed mainly in Baghdad, Diyala and areas just south of the capital.

PM Maliki acknowledged the blast was the work of Neo-Salafi insurgents who fled central Iraq for easier targets. In a statement, he said: "The enemy, with his outrageous crimes against civilians, is trying to open the blockade imposed on him in Baghdad, Diyala and Anbar", referring to offensives by US-led forces and Sunni tribal volunteers.

Ambitious and organised Kurds are pushing for Kirkuk to join Kurdistan, while Turkmen and Arabs are trying to prevent a full-scale Kurdish takeover. Ethnic tensions have been on the rise in Kirkuk. Kurds have aggressively moved into the city since the 2003 US-led invasion, angering Turkmen and Arab residents who feel they are being driven out. Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist dictatorship had resettled many Arabs in Kirkuk. But Kurds believe Kirkuk belongs in Kurdistan, which has its own security and in many ways operates separately from the rest of Iraq.