Resurgence In The Shi'ite World - Part 10 - Iraq's Neo-Salafi Target.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a leading Neo-Salafi group in Iraq, is being pushed out of its strongholds in Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab province of Anbar after fighting with Iraq's fiercely independent tribes in this region. A number of al-Qaeda terrorists have been killed and captured, including Saudis and Syrians. The Neo-Salafis, the most violent and fanatic strain in Sunni Islam, are the main target of a US-backed government clean-up campaign in this country.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, affiliated with Osama bin Laden's "al-Qaeda central" which now is based in a Pakistani enclave on the border with Afghanistan, has been in the lead in efforts to establish in Anbar a Neo-Salafi caliphate. In the process and since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, this group has been waging wars against the foreign occupiers and Iraq's Shi'ite Arabs, as well as those Sunnis co-operating with the US-backed government.

The idea of reviving the Sunni caliphate, which collapsed with the demise of the Ottoman empire early in the 20th century, has been taken up by the Neo-Salafis since the early 1950s. A relatively new but far more violent branch of Saudi Arabia's Sunni Wahhabism and the more widespread Muslim Brotherhood in the Islamic world, Neo-Salafism is the ideology of bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. The idea is to re-establish a Sunni empire stretching from Spain to China and Indonesia and, eventually, ruling the world. This is the Taliban's ideology.

The reason the Neo-Salafis are at war with the Shi'ites is because the latter are aiming for a universal Ja'fari imamate to rule the world, with Iran's theocracy to become its centre. Both the Ja'fari Shi'ites and the Neo-Salafis are at war with the US, which is leading the Western powers and Arab states - as well as Israel- in a global campaign against Islamic terror (see news15-Arab-Iran-HonestyOct9-06).

The latest round of armed clashes erupted after a new grouping calling itself the Anbar Rescue Council - which claims to represent a large number of Anbar tribes and sub-clans - on Oct. 3 was quoted as saying it intended to clear the province of the terrorist group. It also followed a recent meeting between tribal leaders and the Shi'ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in which they asked for government support and arms in their fight against al-Qaeda. The fighting came as the government said it was close to capturing the group's new leader in Iraq, Abu Ayoub al-Masri.

Although the power struggle has not reduced the number of attacks against the US-led coalition in Anbar, it points to a complex re-ordering of the lines of conflict in the so-called "Sunni Arab Triangle". The war's underlying causes were highlighted by the leaking of a letter from al-Qaeda's leadership to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the organisation's former leader in Iraq, who was killed in a US air strike near Ba'quba in the north-east of Iraq.

In the letter, written in December and found at the house where he died, Zarqawi is rebuked by Atiyah Abdul-Rahman, who is allegedly close to senior al-Qaeda figures. Zarqawi is warned "against attempting to kill any religious scholar or tribal leader who is obeyed, and of good repute in Iraq from among the Sunnis, no matter what". Zarqawi is told to improve relationships with other Sunni groups, use the al-Qaeda name more judiciously and told ominously that he might be replaced.

These issues have been at the heart of a rift between al-Qaeda and the Arab tribes of Anbar, many of whose members support the nationalist resistance. Where once tribal leaders in Anbar and other parts of western Iraq welcomed al-Qaeda fighters, providing them with safehouses and other logistical support, there is open war. From Falluja, where the notoriously fractious Bou Eisa clan have turned against al-Qaeda, to the north-western city of Qa'im, where the Bou Mahal are pursuing them, they are being pushed out of their strongholds in the rural west.

Baghdad's courtship of the tribes is oiled by salaries to some sheikhs of up to $5,000 a month. Tribal fighters have also asked for weapons. It is a war driven by deep-rooted social, religious and political considerations. The traditional power of the tribes has been undermined by al-Qaeda "emirs". Some shaikhs have been sickened by al-Qaeda suicide bombings aimed at the Shi'ites, believing they are not only wrong, but that they will ultimately hurt Sunnis - an issue which came to a head with the bombing of the Shi'ites' Golden Shrine in Samarra' on Feb. 22.

The war has been going on for months in areas such as Qa'im near the border of Syria, where the Bou Mahal tribe drove out much of al-Qaeda, angry at attacks on government ration trucks and the destruction of water plants and electricity pylons. The Guardian on Oct. 3 quoted an Anbar resident as saying: "People just got sick of it. They were setting up their own checkpoints, taking property and houses for their use. They were killing not just police and army but clerics they did not agree with and tribal leaders". In Ramadi, Shaikh Abdul-Sattar al-Rishawi, the youthful head of the Bou Risha tribe, on Oct. 2 accused al-Qaeda of taking over the hospital in Ramadi and "slaughtering" injured police and soldiers. He accused the group of robbing banks and government payrolls, killing journalists and human rights workers, and carrying out highway robberies.

The Guardian quoted a "western official" as saying: "[The tribal leaders] are pragmatic and follow their own interests. When al-Qaida arrived they had lots of money. Now they don't, and it is the government that is throwing lots of money at cities such as Ramadi. Also the al-Qaida types tend to come in with the ideology of killing everyone, which does not fit in with the way that tribal types think about fighting. In short, they are pissed off".