IRAQ - The Focus On Al-Qaeda.

Once one target among many, al-Qaeda was in June designated by US commanders in Iraq as their number one enemy. Offensives such as Arrowhead Ripper, a sweep by 10,000 troops of the Diyala province's valley north of Baghdad, are now aiming to break the power of al-Qaeda Iraqi franchise. Diyala is where al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) is now based. Al-Qaeda Central's No. 2 leader, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri whose nephew heads the ISI, claims that this nucleus of a Neo-Salafi caliphate is still growing in Iraq despite the US offensive (see news2Iran&PakBasesFrQaedaJuly9-07).

The US military blames al-Qaeda - the main Neo-Salafi terrorist group in Sunni Islam - for the suicide bombing attacks on civilians which feed Shi'ite militia reprisals and continue Iraq's cycle of violence. Remove the radicals, they say, and peace with the more pragmatic Sunni groups becomes possible. But some analysts question whether al-Qaeda really does have a monopoly on such attacks, and whether it is as pervasive a force as it is often portrayed.

The US military estimates there are 5,000 "fully-fledged members" of al-Qaeda in Iraq, 5% of whom are non-Iraqi, out of 20,000 or more insurgents. Al-Qaeda itself said last October that it commanded 12,000 active fighters, with another 10,000 in training, in a statement declaring its links with ISI.

Analyst Anthony Cordesman, however, who describes al-Qaeda as an "informal, overlapping...group of networks", says both reporters and coalition spokesmen may exaggerate its importance: "When in doubt, you blame suicide bombings on foreign volunteers or al-Qaeda". Although dozens of groups issue statements, the ISI is one of the most prominent names.

Along with Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna, the ISI is usually said to represent a more extreme, religiously-oriented trend within the Neo-Salafi insurgency, espousing pan-Islamic jihad (holy war) against the US presence in the region. Other movements, such as the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujahideen Army, despite their religious-sounding names, are considered to have a more Iraqi Sunni nationalist orientation, focused on pushing out foreign forces and bringing down the Shi'ite-dominated government.

Al-Qaeda's press statements claim attacks on "Crusaders" (US forces), "apostates" (Iraqi government forces), the "followers of Tareq al-Hashemi" (Sunni tribal militias, named after the Sunni Arab vice-president), and the "Army of the False Messiah" (the Shi'ite Jaysh al-Mahdi - JaM - militia). Notably absent from al-Qaeda's communiques are the devastating attacks on civilian and Shi'ite religious targets.

Kathleen Ridolfo, who co-authored a report on Neo-Salafi jihadi media published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in June, says the Sunni nationalists make a point of rejecting such attacks, but al-Qaeda and other like-minded groups may subtly try to justify them. She says: "If you dig deeply through the debates within Islam over whether or not you can target or sacrifice civilians for the greater cause of striking the enemy, then proponents of the Islamic state will argue that you can".

Regardless of its real strength, however, al-Qaeda does seem to have benefited from its leaders' talent for brand-name promotion. The movement in Iraq has its genesis in al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (TwJ), a radical network founded by Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi - a Jordanian Neo-Salafi who was killed in a US air strike in June 2006. US officials say TwJ began around the time of the 2003 US-led invasion. It became a household name in mid-2004 as its black banners cropped up in Sunni cities witnessing insurrection, and videotape of Zarqawi executing hostages was broadcast.

The movement quickly capitalised on its notoriety. US military spokesmen often described TwJ leaders as distributors of cash and other patronage, often obtained from donors outside Iraq, to smaller insurgent groups, persuading them to accept the organisation's "franchise". TwJ scored a big coup in late 2004 when Zarqawi negotiated its entry into the international al-Qaeda network.

A report released in 2006 by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) says this "centralising" process happened throughout the insurgency: "Progressively, as a result of fierce competition, smaller, less effective groups disappeared or merged with more successful, well-established and prestigious ones, such as [al-Qaeda, Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna, and the Islamic Army]".

Despite the merger, the international al-Qaeda may have had little control over the Iraqi movement under Zarqawi and it certainly had reservations about some of its tactics, criticising Zarqawi's gruesome killing methods, including decapitating prisoners on video. Iraqi officials and al-Qaeda experts say, however, that relations between the Iraqi franchise and al-Qaeda's leaders have significantly improved since Zarqawi's death in 2006. He was replaced by Abu Ayoub al-Masri - an Egyptian who is a nephew of Dr. Zawahiri.

Masri's "charm offensive" in trying to attract more Iraqis to his group may have made an impact on the movement's video publications - prisoners are shot, rather than beheaded. In April, according to the RFE/RL report, the movement put out a video called "The Mujahideen's Commitment To The Safety Of Muslims", showing fighters calling off an attack on a US convoy because civilians were nearby. The propaganda campaign came as al-Qaeda's extremism seemed to be alienating other groups.

This year, groups such as the Islamic Army in Iraq have lashed out at al-Qaeda for murdering other insurgents who did not accept its authority, and reportedly fought pitched battles with al-Qaeda militants in Sunni areas. But Islamist websites suggest that considerable pressure has been brought on the Islamic Army to mend its fences with al-Qaeda - and other insurgent organisations may be reluctant to be perceived to be in direct conflict with a movement which has branded itself as an icon of jihad. Al-Qaeda's combination of ideological cohesion and institutional decentralisation means the US military still faces an uphill battle to isolate and defeat them.