Recap

In our study of the Iraqi insurgency, we have finally reached 2006, perhaps the most important year of the war, as several trends from the preceding years dramatically escalate. Let us briefly recap the insurgency and its pre-history up until this point. During the 1990s, the Baathist government made a number of major reforms to shore up its support. In particular, it decentralized military command to prepare for potential rebellions. This meant that the fall of the Baathist government did not destroy the country’s military networks, which readily transitioned to insurgency. Similarly, in the Faith Campaign, the government loosened restrictions on religion in an attempt to co-opt growing popular religiosity. This inadvertently revealed the Baath Party’s cynicism to many Iraqis, as they realized the Party’s chief aim was the perpetuation of its own power. Baathism lost its legitimacy, and Islamism slowly but surely emerged in its place. Most importantly, the Baathist government permitted, and even boosted, tribal identity and political networks. In doing so, Baghdad sought to incorporate tribal smuggling networks into the economy, thus relieving pressure from the crushing sanctions regime. The Baath Party also sought to co-opt tribal politics to shore itself up. As with the Faith Campaign, Baathist sponsorship of tribalism unintentionally revealed that their own role in Iraq was increasingly obsolete. Iraqis could turn to social networks other than the Baath and still survive. For this reason, in March 2003, the US and allied nations, called the Coalition, were able to swiftly topple the Baathist government, which collapsed about a month after the invasion.

However, the collapse of the Baath merely set the stage for an Islamist, then jihadist, insurgency in Iraq. Initially, the insurgency was disparate and unorganized, led mainly by Baathist officers and fought by ordinary Iraqi men, who had mostly gained combat experience in the brutal war with Iran during the 1980s. The “Baathist” phase of the insurgency–indeed, Baathism as such–came to an abrupt end with the arrest of Saddam Husayn in December 2003. Never again would there be a real political force acting in its name.^[1] This cleared the way for the insurgency’s growing Islamization, within which was its steady Salafization. From the beginning, there were Islamist and jihadist groups active in the insurgency, but these tended to be small and marginal, although quite competent. Among these groups was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s ultra-extremist network, Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ), but this group’s existence would not be publicly announced until April 2004. JTJ was the nucleus of the present-day Islamic State. In 2003, it was responsible for dozens of extremely deadly suicide bombings. However, at this stage, the vast majority of Sunni Iraqi insurgents were moderate religious nationalists, but this would soon change, beginning in 2004.

During this year, the insurgency would have its first great showdowns with the Coalition in the city of Fallujah, the site of two major battles. The First Battle of Fallujah was incited by the slaying of four Blackwater contractors, which prompted the Coalition to mount an assault on militants in the city. The insurgency decisively won this confrontation, with JTJ playing a key part in the fighting, earning it significant prestige. Under JTJ’s leadership, Fallujah became an Islamic emirate and the insurgency’s unofficial capital, attracting thousands of fighters from across Iraq and even many foreign fighters.^[2]

In November 2004, JTJ merged with Al Qaida, forming Al Qaida in the Land of Two Rivers, or Al Qaida in Iraq (AQI). The insurgency in Fallujah radicalized considerably under JTJ/AQI, which gradually began to lead the insurgency writ large, owing to their prestige and combat experience. More Iraqi insurgent groups and fighters began to join JTJ. The informal emirate in Fallujah lasted until the Second Battle of Fallujah, which was a devastating blow to the insurgency, killing and capturing over four thousand insurgents. The survivors tended to be amongst the most ideologically extreme and militarily competent. After the battle, they dispersed across Iraq, bringing with them their Salafi Jihadist ideology and storied experience. This Coalition victory was, therefore, fleeting, as the broader insurgency was now under AQI’s leadership, which, beginning in 2005, regrouped and reorganized, especially in western Anbar Province.

The events of 2005 were decisive in AQI’s later hegemonic power over, and almost complete absorption of, the entire Sunni insurgency. Early that year, AQI reasserted its authority by threatening the January elections, particularly in Anbar, where it successfully deterred turnout. Of the 750,000 possible votes, roughly 16,500 were cast–a mere 2%. The organization quickly began to restore its capabilities and influence, leading to several Coalition operations which would establish a pattern in Coalition efforts during 2005 in particular and during the insurgency in general. These operations successfully disrupted and suppressed AQI in the time and place in which they were conducted, but only in that time and place. Their results were fleeting and often counter-productive, forcing AQI to re-strategize and become more effective as an insurgent and political group.

Meanwhile, AQI formed its new headquarters in the western Iraqi border city of Al Qaim, which later became the “capital” of its informal emirate in western Anbar governorate, far greater in size and power than the emirate in Fallujah. This larger emirate loosely corresponded to the Euphrates River Valley from Al Qaim to the Haditha Triad area. AQI controlled highly lucrative and strategic smuggling routes, granting it significant wealth and resources. During this period, non-AQI insurgents began defecting en-masse to AQI, which by 2006 would become the largest and most potent insurgent organization. Its power led to closer relations with the Sunni tribes, but its arrogance with regard to the tribes led to the first serious instance of Sunni opposition to AQI. This was the Albu Mahal tribal rebellion in Al Qaim, which was rooted in AQI’s unilateral seizure of smuggling profits and political authority. The Albu Mahal rose up and was viciously crushed by AQI during intense intra-insurgent warfare in the summer of 2005. The survivors flipped over from the insurgency to the Coalition, marking the first time that a group of Sunni Iraqis began fighting insurgents in service to the Coalition. This portended later tribal rebellions against AQI (by that point, the Islamic State of Iraq) which almost completely defeated the insurgency. In late 2005, around the same time as the Albu Mahal’s defection, the Coalition launched massive operations that successfully dismantled AQI’s “Islamic Emirate” in western Anbar and severely disrupted the organization’s capabilities. So degraded was the group that it was incapable of seriously threatening the December 2005 elections. This finally brings us to 2006.

Challenges to AQI

In late 2005, Operation Sayyad II significantly disrupted AQI’s extensive network in western Anbar, which had become an informal Islamic emirate, and weakened its overall influence in the insurgency.^[3] This was best demonstrated by the major success of the December 2005 elections, which AQI was unable to attack or otherwise disrupt. Unlike the January 2005 elections, the Sunni population greatly participated, with turnout in Anbar jumping from 55% to 85% and local elites increasingly joining the political process. Likewise, the Coalition promised to double funding for reconstruction efforts, further boosting confidence. Such success, in turn, created opportunities for the Sunni Arab Resistance (SAR) to resume serious negotiations with the Coalition.^[4] However, AQI was still a major threat, as shown by its attacks across Baghdad, Ramadi, Karbala, and Bayji.

Despite substantial losses in logistics and experienced leadership, AQI maintained a presence in western Anbar, where Coalition operations were most effective. The organization shifted its logistics center away from Al Qaim city and set up secondary hubs in Mosul and Tal Afar, where AQI secured funding, weaponry, and personnel. In New Ubaydi, the existing AQI networks coerced the population into storing weaponry and surveilling Coalition and Iraqi government forces in the city. Of key importance to the group were new border crossing sites, since its previous sites were now occupied by Coalition forces:

Other border crossings not secured by Coalition presence were more amenable to insurgent and criminal activity. The Waleed and Trebil crossings, under the control of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, remained subject to corruption despite increases in security. New directors and security forces were assigned to both crossings, but neither received adequate supplies or money from the ministry, which refused to support the efforts of the new directors to remove corrupt personnel. Without pay from the central government, the incentives for criminal activity far exceeded the consequences of corruption. Trebil customs inspector [REDACTED] was making so much money through corruption that he was able to provide funds to AQI leader [REDACTED] and helped to smuggle vehicles across the [Iraqi-Syrian] border. By mid-January, officials at Waleed were helping foreign fighters to smuggle personnel and equipment between [Syria] and Iraq, receiving undisclosed amounts of money to let foreign fighters pass through checkpoints without being inspected (3).

Rawah and Anah also took on new importance, as both cities were strategically located between Al Qaim and Haditha. AQI set up IED and VBIED production in the Rawah-Anah corridor for attacks throughout the Al Qaim area.^[5] Unsurprisingly, AQI also commenced a brutal intimidation campaign in the cities, in which it assassinated the Anah city council head.

AQI’s reorganization efforts in Anbar varied considerably from city to city, with one constant being increased popular pressure to minimize collateral damage and attacks on civilians. For example, overall insurgent presence was initially weak in Fallujah, dating back to the disastrous Second Battle, but Coalition authority was fragile, due to popular resentment and to the weakness of the ‘ulama. In November 2005, the popular shaykh Hamza Abbas was assassinated. AQI successfully intimidated his replacement, who fled the country. In turn, the next replacement was, unsurprisingly, unable to assuage popular fears of the insurgency. Thus: “The weakening of the ‘ulama in Fallujah allowed AQI to increase activity in mosques and subvert moderate clerics, further demoralizing the religious establishment” (5). Further: “AQI fighters in Fallujah initiated a major campaign against suspected Coalition informants, posing as Coalition interpreters and telephoning suspected informants to confirm their cooperation. If the suspected Iraqi ‘collaborator’ admitted to cooperating with the Coalition, they were killed” (5). Meanwhile, in Zaidon, AQI’s presence was incredibly strong and critical in restoring broader influence. The city emir was well-connected to both former Iraqi Intelligence Service officers (gaining expertise) and to Iraqi government contracts (gaining financing). In Saqlawiyah, there was an interesting divergence between the foreign and local AQI fighters:

[The] force of foreign fighters was large enough to form their own groups and conduct independent operations without the assistance of locals. The AQI associate group al-Hizb al-Salafi, also known to locals as al-Salafi al-Takfiri, was made up of poor farmers who had gotten wealthy by intimidating the residents of near-by Dhiyabat. Despite the presence of these insurgents, Saqlawiyah was relatively quiet, since many fighters and their facilitators lived in the city and did not wish to attract Coalition attention. In early 2006 AQI fighters wearing Iraqi security uniforms began questioning Saqlawiyah residents about assisting the Coalition and killed them if their suspicions were confirmed. Followers of Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi maintained an insurgent network in Albu Shijil west of Saqlawiyah that engaged in kidnapping, murder, and propaganda with the support of the census bureau director and Black Flags leader [REDACTED] (6).

One can observe signs of a growing problem in AQI: relatively weakening Salafi Jihadi zeal among Iraqi fighters. Local Saqlawiyah fighters in the town of Saqlawiyah used their connection to AQI primarily for profiteering and petty local rivalries. Their inspection of residents served a dual role of weakening opposition to AQI in general and to themselves in particular. The situation in Amariyah, Karmah, and Ferris Town was more violent, as AQI was able to set up attack cell networks and (VB)IED production sites.

However, AQI’s penetration of the Haqlaniyah-Haditha-Barwanah triad and of Ramadi was perhaps the most severe in Anbar. Government structures in the triad were highly compromised, with most city council members and all mayors being devoted members of either AQI or Ansar al-Sunnah (AS) or both. Meetings held between Coalition authorities and city officials to ‘secure’ the cities were attended by AQI and AS operatives, who used official political channels to further jihadist aims. Even important non-governmental authorities were insurgent operatives. For example, in Haditha, the dam manager was a Salafi Jihadist highly sympathetic to AQI/AS and concealed the identities of operatives and supporters. Likewise, Haditha officials restricted Coalition presence to city outskirts, while retaining real control of the city itself. The Coalition arrested the insurgent mayor of Haqlaniyah but this accomplished nothing, as the entire city government was infiltrated. The other operatives quietly continued their efforts, which included plans to create a fully insurgent-staffed police force to ‘maintain order.’ In contrast, Ramadi’s city government was far less infiltrated but overall insurgent presence was well-developed. AQI leveraged and expanded its connections to ex-Baathist intelligence officers and specialists, which improved its operational effectiveness, financing, and influence over other insurgent groups:

While leader of the [AQI-affiliated Abu Harun] Group, [REDACTED] had created a well-structured organization with excellent operational security. His support network consisted of two groups, each of which would retain the ability to reinforce the other in the event of a major push against his organization. As a result, [REDACTED] was able to evade Coalition raids and train his subordinates to assume leadership in his absence. In 2005, [REDACTED] frequently traveled to a terrorist training camp in Dayr al-Zawr, [Syria] but with the successes of Coalition operations in western Anbar in late 2005, he evidently decided to create a new camp for use by his group near Lake Thar Thar (11).

It is worth reiterating that the large presence of ex-Baathists in AQI (and AS) was due to it being the largest and most powerful insurgent group, not due to any ideological affinity between Baathism and Salafi Jihadism, as shown by captured AQI manuals:

Insurgent booklets captured on January 26 during a cordon-and-knock operation in Ramadi demonstrated AQI’s seamless integration of war and religion. The booklets contained after-action comments, lessons learned, and instructions for successful operations written in the form of moral admonitions. Poor behavior to be avoided included bragging about attacks, cutting off supplies to other insurgents, not properly accounting for weapons and supplies, taking credit for attacks carried out by others, improper mortar training, infighting, arguing about the legitimacy of jihad, and nepotism. Recommended targeting included not only Coalition troops, military bases, staging areas, and contractors, but also criminals, television stations, cinemas, clubs, liquor stores, whorehouses, internet cafes, music stores, adult stores, and Masons (12).

It is likely that many of AQI’s ex-Baathist recruits were already Islamist or even Salafi Jihadist prior to the fall of the Baathist government. The onset of the insurgency allowed them to openly identify with jihadism.

As alluded to above, AQI increasingly absorbed or otherwise swayed other insurgent groups, accelerating a trend established in 2005. Although AQI and AS had long been linked together, the depth and scale of their cooperation reached a new level in late 2005. AQI permitted AS to plan and execute operations on its own, while AS set up its own satellite groups and financing networks. AQI’s relations with other insurgent groups were more complex, but the key theme was its growing dominance. The dynamics in Karmah and Ramadi were representative of Anbar. In Karmah, several insurgent groups that had, in 2005, suffered infighting between pro- and anti-AQI factions, now, in 2006, largely aligned with AQI. For example, several senior leaders of the Green Battalion, an anti-AQI insurgent group, joined AQI and its elite death squad, the Umar Brigade. Even non-AQI members of the Green Battalion began conducting operations on the orders of AQI figures.

In contrast, anti-AQI holdouts in the Battalion did not fare well. The group’s leader aligned to the Islamic Army of Iraq, which participated in the official political process. This alignment required the Green Battalion to enter hostilities with AQI in addition to the Coalition, which demoralized rank-and-file fighters, who soon began defecting to AQI. In Ramadi, 1920 Revolution Brigades and Jaysh al-Mujahidin, two insurgent groups opposed to AQI, also suffered major defections to AQI. These included several top specialists, such as explosives engineers, which left large gaps in both groups. Indeed, AQI had so severely compromised Jaysh al-Mujahidin that disillusioned members of the latter formed an entirely new group.

Insurgent consolidation and interlinking was indirectly facilitated by the poor state of Iraqi security forces. Since recruitment and organization was left at the local level, the quality of police varied significantly from city to city. Police in Rutbah and Rawah were highly compromised, going so far as to intervene in the December 2005 elections through bribery and intimidation:

The Rutbah police also assisted AQI in its activities, providing the group with information that could be used to target pro-Coalition police. Many police even went as far as to kidnap and torture their fellow officers for AQI. As a result, the remaining police were considered complicit in the insurgency by residents (13).

Fallujah police was also quite compromised, albeit more indirectly. Police chief Salah was a sincere police officer, but his outsider status weakened his authority, so he relied on two local city councilmen who were sympathetic to the insurgency, Shaykh Khalid and Shaykh Sattar al-Dafar (not to be confused with Sattar Abu Risha). They regularly pushed for the release of detained insurgents and screened police recruits for Salafi beliefs. Sattar even hired Salafists to the local Ministry of Defense intelligence unit. Meanwhile, in Ramadi, police were loyal to the Coalition, which made them subject to brutal attacks, such as one on January 5, 2006 that killed and wounded over 100 police recruits. Local elites and citizens harshly condemned the attack, in a growing pattern of discontent over AQI’s brutality.

The variable state of Iraqi police was a byproduct of the broader struggle between AQI and the Coalition over the loyalty of the Sunni tribes. Most tribes remained divided on the insurgency, though many were wholly supportive of AQI. However, after several years of trouble, the Coalition would finally make considerable advances among the tribes in 2006, in large part due to AQI’s own actions. For example, many of the recruits killed in the Ramadi attack belonged to the Albu Nimr tribe, which vowed vengeance against AQI. This solidified hostile relations between the two, though many Albu Nimr members still sympathized with the insurgency. Meanwhile, the Albu Mahal was almost unanimously pro-Coalition, as it was the first Sunni tribe to revolt against AQI (as discussed in the previous installment), for which it suffered immense consequences.

Albu Mahal tribesmen staffed the police and the newly-formed Desert Protectors, an early form of the Awakening or Sahwa Councils. Indeed, another portent of the Sahwa was the Anbar People’s Committee, a tribal advocacy body that represented the tribes on a number of issues, especially security. The founding meeting was attended by over 70 Anbari elites, including some insurgent leaders. The seeming rapprochement between the tribes and the Coalition substantially contributed to greater Coalition control over western Anbar, AQI’s previous stronghold. Insurgents were still capable of mounting sporadic and quite deadly attacks, but the region was much more secure than in 2005.

These developments encouraged anti-AQI insurgents to join forces with pro-Coalition tribes, which naturally angered AQI. Rivalries were most intense in Ramadi, where the 1920 Revolution Brigade replenished its depleted ranks with recruits from tribes allied to the Anbar People’s Committee. The Brigade was soon able to exert influence beyond Ramadi into the Hit-Haditha corridors, which had long been AQI territory. The final aim was to drive out AQI from Ramadi and later from Anbar, which AQI unsurprisingly resisted with great force and sophistication:

Intent on dismantling the political initiative, AMZ [Zarqawi] had his Shari’ah Committee issue a fatwa calling for the death of every Ramadi sheikh participating in the Anbar People's Committee. AMZ had recently reconfigured the AQI Shura Council to give himself more direct control over the legal decisions issued by the Shari’ah Committee, a move that was controversial, but very useful in situations like this fight with a fellow devout Muslim like [REDACTED].

AQI and Ansar al-Sunna now stepped up attacks on Iraqi police recruits and prominent Anbaris. Fighters from as far afield as al-Qaim, Fallujah, and Diyala reinforced Ramadi’s outlying Tamim district, already an AQI stronghold, to take part in the fight with [REDACTED]. AQI fighters wearing Coalition uniforms roamed the Albu Faraj, Albu Fahd, Albu Ubayd, and Albu Maraj tribal areas, targeting sheikhs, imams, technocrats, and Iraqi military personnel for assassination and counteracting positive perceptions of the Coalition.

AQI and local fighters were able to carry out two complex attacks against the Ramadi Government Center and Coalition bases using IDF, SAF, RPGs, and VBIEDs on January 20-21. Whereas previous attacks of this scale had created anti-Coalition sentiment in frightened residents seeking to avoid violence, there was little response to these attacks since the violence was widely perceived as a test of wills between the local 1920 Revolution Brigade and the less popular but more powerful AQI (16-17).

In parallel to these efforts, on January 10, AQI formed a political front group, Mujahidin Shura Council or MSC (Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin), which subsumed it alongside five other like-minded groups.^[6] This was meant to aesthetically “Iraqify” AQI, whose popularity was declining. Indeed:

The creation of the Mujahideen Shura Council, which led to a reduced role for AMZ [Abu Musab al-Zarqawi], was a reaction to complaints from both AMZ lieutenants and AQSL [AQ Senior Leadership] that AMZ had created a cult of personality and that AQI had become too isolated to form a united Islamist front in Iraq (17).

Although AQI technically continued to exist and formed the bulk of MSC, all media releases and statements were now issued under the MSC label and banner. It is quite striking that Zarqawi’s use of the Al Qaida affiliation lasted for little more than a year, after which he discarded it for a more ‘locally-appearing’ Iraqi Salafi Jihadist organization.^[7] This portended the extremely radical formation of the Islamic State of Iraq (al-Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiya) in the Fall of 2006.^[8] It is worth repeating that in all these iterations, the movement was overwhelmingly Iraqi, both in membership and ideology. It was so extreme precisely because it was so thoroughly Iraqi. Since Iraq was the most advanced Arab country, its destruction would have the most radical consequences. In a word, it had the hardest to fall, the result of which was the Islamic State movement, a lasting echo of the Sunni Iraqi insurgency.

It is worth comparing MSC to Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen, as the former likely influenced the latter, creating another parallel in the long overlap between Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State movement.^[9] The known presence of Iraq veterans in AQAP bolsters this theory. The formation of MSC greatly reduced AQI’s profile, though AQI clearly dominated MSC. The relationship between AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia is similar, though many mistakenly believe that Ansar is a mere mask for AQAP. This explanation is superficial, as it immediately raises the question of why AQAP has never meaningfully obscured its ties to Ansar. Rather, Ansar is a politico-military front group for AQAP, which uses it to engage with key interest groups in Yemeni society, especially the Sunni tribes.^[10] Accordingly, Ansar has always been larger than AQAP, but the latter is the central political group, in much the same way that AQI was in MSC. However, AQAP has always maintained a much greater profile than AQI did. It was not subsumed under Ansar al-Sharia. One can observe this in the role of the media in both movements. Once MSC was declared, AQI ceased its own independent media operations. All media was instead released under the MSC brand and through its channels. In contrast, AQAP has always maintained a high-visibility media presence in parallel to (if not greater than) Ansar al-Sharia’s own media.

Another noteworthy parallel is MSC’s and Ansar’s roles in governance. MSC was the direct predecessor to Islamic State. It was almost certainly intended to be the embryo of the “state” that AQI had in mind. Similarly, Ansar al-Sharia’s politico-military efforts have led to the formation of emirates in cities in which the movement is dominant. In 2011-12, AQAP declared emirates in Zinjibar, Azzan, and Ja’ar, which had all been seized by Ansar.^[11] Later, in 2015-16, AQAP declared emirates throughout southern Yemen, where Ansar al-Sharia had seized several highly important cities, such as Mukalla, where it governed through yet another front group, “Sons of Hadhramawt.”^[12] The strategy was far more lenient than Islamic State’s brutality, but the lineage is quite clear. However, let us return to MSC in Iraq.

Rival insurgent groups quickly responded to the MSC’s formation by creating their own coalition against AQI, stating their staunch opposition to Zarqawi: “This declaration was a result of the efforts of the tribal sheikhs and imams in the Anbar People's Committee as part of their pursuit of political engagement rather than violence with the Iraqi government and the Coalition” (17). The groups involved were the Islamic Movement of Mujahidin, the Islamic Army of Iraq, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the al-Nu'man Brigade, Jaysh Muhammad, and Jaysh al-Mujahidin. Cracks were even forming within MSC, with dissident leaders meeting representatives of the other insurgent groups to oust Zarqawi from Iraq and even negotiate an end to the insurgency.

MSC responded to these moves by mounting a massive and especially brutal murder and intimidation campaign against insurgent rivals and dissident tribes. The most notable attacks highlight MSC’s brutality and enormous power over its rivals:

– In late December, AQI operative [REDACTED] began kidnapping, torturing, and murdering children from the Albu Affan School [...]

– In early January, al-Zobai tribesmen loyal to AQI mortared a number of villages, including al-Ta'us, that were suspected of cooperating with the Coalition.

– On January 1, Sheikh Ibrahim N'aif Mishan of the Albu Aetha was kidnapped by AQI fighters from the Albu Ubayd tribe who did not agree with his support for the elections. Sheikh Ibrahim was a lieutenant of ally Sheikh Nasser Fahdawi, who had been instrumental in the formation of a militia in the Sufia district of Ramadi to support the December elections.

– On January 5, AQI fighters from the Albu Faraj tribe kidnapped Sheikh Khamis al-Fahdawi. In retaliation, the Albu Fahd kidnapped seven Albu Faraj tribesmen including an AQI financier. AQI responded by murdering Sheikh Khamis's brother Walid, leading to tribal warfare between the Albu Fahd and the Albu Faraj tribes. [...]

– On January 14, associate and prominent IIP member Sheikh 'Abd al-Ghafar al-Rawi was dragged from the Shafi al-Kabir mosque in the Tamim district of Ramadi and murdered by AQI members wearing stolen American military uniforms. Sheikh 'Abd al-Ghaffar was a member of the clerics' subcommittee of the Anbar People's Committee and his death damaged ability to get backing for his goal of establishing provincial security.

– On January 16, AQI murdered Sheikh Nasser Abd al-Karim Mukhlif al-Fahdawi, the leader of the Albu Fahd tribe, in the Sufia district of Ramadi. Sheikh Nasser was a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi who was both respected and influential at the highest echelons of Anbari society. He was a key member of Anbar People's Committee who had served as a driving force to improve security in the provincial capital. Because the Albu Fahd tribe is large and divided into many factions and subtribes, AQI used a fighter from the Albu Fahd to eliminate him. Sheikh Nasser's [REDACTED] assumed leadership of the tribe upon his death.

– On January 18, AQI killed al-Nu'man Brigade leader Sheikh Muhammad Sadaq al-Battah Albu Chulayb, the head of the Albu Chulayb tribe, along with his nephew and an Iraqi National Intelligence employee in an apartment in the Bayaa district of southern Baghdad. Sheikh Sadaq was a relative of Iraqi Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaymi and was en route to a meeting of the Anbar People's Committee at the time of the murder. Sheikh Sadaq was also a key member of [REDACTED]’s inner circle and the chairman of the defense subcommittee of the Anbar People’s Committee. [REDACTED] wanted to use the Anbar People's Committee to attack AQI following the killing of Sheikh Nasser and Sheikh Sadaq, but the rest of the Committee was too afraid to do so and the sheikhs insisted on only working on pre-arranged topics and tasks.

– On February 7, AQI assassinated the well-regarded Fallujah city council chairman Sheikh Kamal Shakir al-Nazal. Following the assassination, several local politicians and technocrats pulled back from dealing with the Coalition (18-19)

The assassination of Mukhlif al-Fahdawi was especially damaging to the Anbar People’s Committee as he was a highly influential member of Anbari society. His death represented both the failure of anti-AQI insurgents to protect their own and of AQI’s deep intelligence and influence in Iraqi tribal society. In February, the Coalition captured files detailing the assassination campaign:

The document described the group's plan to destroy the Anbar People's Committee and its status to date by detailing the killing of several sheikhs including Sheikh Nasser. According to the author of the document, these killings had resulted in several sheikhs rescinding their pledges of cooperation with the Coalition for fear of assassination. The document concluded by submitting a detailed list of recommended additional targets including the leadership of the Albu Nimr and Albu Khalifa tribes, and Lieutenant General Muhammad Sa'ab Manfi al-Rawi (20).

Bernard Fall’s insights into revolutionary warfare are ever-relevant.^[13] AQI’s efforts closely resembled the Viet Cong’s assassination campaign against pro-US officials across South Vietnam. However, the missing element in AQI’s strategy was a ‘carrot’ to match the ‘stick.’ Eventually, the tribes would have enough of AQI’s brutality and accept the associated costs in order to destroy it. They nearly succeeded.

AQI at the Lead

AQI’s successful intimidation campaign against Anbari elites jeopardized the advances in the political and security processes.^[14] Ordinary people and local notables were hesitant to work with the Coalition or Baghdad. This created room for MSC to firmly regain the initiative, which it accomplished by taking over Ramadi. MSC first began deploying additional fighters to the Tamim district, which it already controlled. Then:

At the end of January 2006 AQI spread its fighters from the Tamim district into the 5 Kilo, Sufia, Julaybah, Albu Ubayd, and Albu Bali areas of Ramadi. To support the influx of fighters, AQI set up levies to recruit military-aged males in Fallujah and Ramadi from allied tribes. Those recruited in the Fallujah area were sent to Ramadi to fight.

The expansion of AQI in Ramadi set off another round of defections for [REDACTED], foremost among them was the Khalidiyah 1920 Revolution Brigade leader Muhammad Ayid Fayath, who joined AQI to exercise greater influence over the Khalidiyah-Habbaniyah corridor. Another important defection was [REDACTED], the accounting manager of the Anbar Provincial Government Center, who had supported [REDACTED] financially, but in early 2006 switched to giving funds to AQI (20).

Holdouts in the 1920 Revolution Brigade continued fighting MSC, but they were in a clearly losing position. Interestingly, the Brigade’s efforts were led by Saddam-era General Thumayl Jarbawi al-Fahdawi, who fervently supported the Anbar People’s Committee. In the Albu Thiyab al-Thanya district, locals formed a militia to prevent AQI from taking control, to which AQI responded by destroying the house of their shaykh and threatening local leaders with execution. The militia subsequently disbanded, cementing MSC’s control of the district. MSC then began to attack its rivals, including its own previous ally Jaysh al-Haqq for supporting negotiations.

MSC’s efforts were highly successful, as it became the leading insurgent organization in Ramadi by early February. The 1920 Revolution Brigade was defeated and posed little threat since its remnants were concentrated in just two districts. AQI’s success in Ramadi restored the insurgency’s standing in the rest of Anbar, particularly the west, where the Coalition had temporarily advanced:

AQI fighters returned in force to Karabilah, Haditha, southeastern Hit, and Albu Hyatt, where they established a strong insurgent presence through murder and intimidation. AQI's renewed efforts in western Anbar were aided by the release of former AQI amir [REDACTED] from Abu Ghraib. [REDACTED] immediately rejoined the group and used his experience at intimidating locals to bolster AQI morale and recruiting efforts by telling them that they had nothing to fear from Coalition detention (22).

An inadvertent rotation of insurgent arrests and prisoner releases also preserved AQI’s overall strength:

Under normal circumstances, the capture in early March of [REDACTED] (AQI’s amir for the Baghdadi to Husaybah region) would have severely hurt the group. A former IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] major in the Iraqi army, [REDACTED] had orchestrated much of AQI's murder and intimidation campaign against the Iraqi security forces in 2005. The fifth highest ranking AQI amir, [REDACTED] had relocated to first [REDACTED] and then [REDACTED] to escape Operation STEEL CURTAIN but had retained ties to the AQI leadership in Ramadi. Unfortunately, the effects of [REDACTED]’s capture were undercut by the release of equally senior AQI amirs like [REDACTED] from Abu Ghraib that enabled the group to rebuild existing networks or to create new ones to compensate for loss (22).

A motif in Coalition releases of prisoners was the seemingly consistent misapprehension of the importance of the prisoners in question. For example, the Coalition had arrested Abu Umar al-Baghdadi in 2004 and 2005, only to release him shortly afterwards. In general, this was due to several factors. First was the role of AQI moles and other political operatives who pushed for the releases of key fighters and commanders. Second was the prisoners’ own clever downplaying of their roles, as in Abu Umar’s case. Third was the Coalition’s incompetence, which often led them to believing moles or the prisoners themselves. By 2006, the Coalition’s capabilities had vastly improved and high-value prisoners ceased to be released, but they still organized amongst themselves within the prisons, such as in the infamous Camp Bucca.

In any case, MSC’s victory over the Anbar People’s Committee and its allies in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar led to a renewed murder and intimidation campaign. The following were perhaps the most grisly attacks:

– In late January the "Anbar Insurgent Command" posted "night letters" in Hit that threatened residents who cooperated with the Coalition, warning that insurgents were watching everyone in the city.

– About the same time AQI fighters in the 5 Kilo, Tamim, and al-Tash areas of Ramadi kidnapped suspected collaborators, bringing them before Mullah Khattan to determine whether they were to be tortured or killed. The Coalition later uncovered an AQI detention facility near Lake Thar Thar that contained a number of torture devices, makeshift cells, and signs of recent use. [...]

– On January 29 four insurgents led by [REDACTED] detonated an IED in front of a house in Bani Dhari, firing AK-47s into the house and forcing the family to flee, believing them to have passed information to Coalition patrols.

– On February 1 AQI fighters [REDACTED] killed a local hairdresser in front of her children in Karmah for violating shari’ah. […]

– In mid-February AQI murdered Jaysh al-Haqq leader Sa'ad Badria, leading to open fighting between AQI and Jaysh al-Haqq for control of the Tamim district of Ramadi. AQI would ultimately prevail over Jaysh al-Haqq, increasing its presence in the district (23).

Note that many of these attacks (and others not listed above) were perpetrated by low-level fighters. In every organization, there is a difference in ideological adherence between the leadership and the rank-and-file. In some, the leaders are more moderate or pragmatic than the members. In others, members are more moderate than leaders. In the latter case, especially in wars, this is likely due to the growing presence of more opportunistic elements who join the organization since it appears the most likely to win. By this point in the Iraqi insurgency, this motivation would have been somewhat significant as MSC was quite strong and putting up major resistance against the Coalition and Baghdad. It is therefore fair to assume many AQI fighters were somewhat opportunistic. However, the events stated above suggest that the entire organization was fanatically Salafi Jihadist, pointing to a rigorous ideological indoctrination program. This situation would soon change, as we shall see further below.

One could observe a case study of this program and of the broader inter-insurgent rivalry in the struggle over Anbar University in Ramadi. Jihadism is fundamentally a political movement, so it is natural that it would find its way into student politics on the campus. It is worth quoting the Study at length:

The 1920 Revolution Brigade had been the dominant insurgent group, active in the school since 2003, reflecting the orientation of the university as a whole: formerly Ba’athist, but open to religion. This domination enabled to use many student groups as a recruiting pool for his organization. Distinguished faculty professors like legal studies professor [REDACTED] were part of [REDACTED]’s command and control network. Campus security director [REDACTED] led a cell of the Yarmuk Brigade (an associate group of the 1920 Revolution Brigade) that met regularly on campus, receiving payments of up to $20,000 from university contractor [REDACTED]. Despite this, much of the faculty was apolitical and tried to distance themselves from their country's current crisis.

By late 2005, loyalty began to shift among some faculty and student groups towards AQI, though the fact that the school was commuter-based kept at bay, at least temporarily, some of the dangers of extremism on campus. Two law professors [REDACTED] exemplified the shift in the faculty. [REDACTED] became an AQI organizer and planner, preaching jihad and delivering anti-government lectures to the student body. [REDACTED], meanwhile, used his position to promote Salafism and recruit students to join AQI. [REDACTED] frequently traveled to Baghdad on business trips, using them as a cover for meeting with AQI in the city. AQI relied too on the internet cafe in Anbar University as its key means of communication in Ramadi due to a permissive environment and lack of usage fees.

By early March 2006, AQI and Ansar al-Sunna had displaced 1920 Revolution Brigade from its place as the dominant insurgent group at the University. Shari’ah was declared on campus, a strict Islamic dress code was enforced, and male and female students were segregated. Some students were unhappy with the dress code, but they were unable to resist AQI. Members of the university faculty and staff who opposed AQI or questioned the group's interpretation of Islam were removed from their positions and in some cases murdered. For instance, [REDACTED] was personally opposed to AQI but, after he was kidnapped for a month by the group in mid-2005, he stopped protesting the group publicly. Cowed into submission by AQI, [REDACTED] provided the group with money acquired from contacts in [REDACTED] as well as the funding allocated to him by the Ministry of Education (23-24).

Around this time, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was both a doctoral student in theology and a sharia judge for AQI. One can observe the larger theme of AQI’s popularity among Sunni Iraqi youth, which was also evidenced by tribal leaders’ complaints that AQI was “luring away” younger tribesmen. Likewise, one can see AQI’s inroads into a segment of Sunni Iraqi intelligentsia, which had substantial reason to support them, largely due to the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army’s brutal cultural cleansing campaign.^[15]

MSC’s “hearts and minds” campaign extended throughout Anbar. For example, it offered payment to “families whose homes were damaged by the Coalition during combat; more than 300 families would accept their offer” (24). Akin to its university efforts, AQI began recruiting previous and current prisoners from Abu Ghraib by offering protection and aid in exchange for loyalty. Notably, and in keeping with broader patterns, AQI and other Salafi Jihadist groups enforced Salafi practices onto new prisoner recruits and on other prisoners, representing insurgent power even behind prison walls–Camp Bucca would become an infamous example. More generally, this enforcement was a “key indicator that the most extreme religious elements within ‘the mujahidin’ would impose their views not only on ordinary Iraqis, but also on the insurgency as a whole” (25). AQI’s relationship with Ansar al-Sunnah (AS) also continued to tighten. Operational and strategic collaboration intensified and membership increasingly overlapped to the point that many cells were interchangeable. One difficult city for the insurgency remained Fallujah, which had a real insurgent presence yet was still under Coalition control. MSC began a specific propaganda campaign to artificially boost its strength in the city. Local militant shaykhs began financing AQI in earnest: “In addition to funding AQI through his Baghdad-based engineering and construction company, Sheikh Barakat supplied the group with mortars, RPG-7s, and SA-7s that he had stolen after the fall of Saddam Hussein and buried in the desert” (25). Another such shaykh was Abdullah al-Janabi, a longtime AQI operative, who directed his deputies to increase financing to AQI.^[16]

Back in Ramadi, the Islamic Army of Iraq took up the mantle of opposing AQI with the support of the remnants of the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Albu Fahd tribe. This encouraged the leaders of the Anbar People’s Committee to turn it into the Anbar Revolutionary Group, which by its own admission was too weak to attack AQI. The Group’s strategy was to collect intelligence on AQI and its umbrella, then relay it to the Iraqi army, which was capable of mounting offensives. This bolstered other anti-AQI forces:

[REDACTED]’s renewed struggle with AQI galvanized other elements of Ramadi society into action. Tribal leaders throughout the provincial capital stated that killing any Iraqi male wearing a ski mask or other "typical" insurgent clothing would not warrant a blood payment. In the Sufia district, locals took up arms against AQI to deny them freedom of movement through their area. The Albu Dhiab tribe also restricted access to their section of Ramadi, setting up barriers and checkpoints to deter AQI entry. [REDACTED]’s trusted ally Lieutenant General Muhammad Sa'ab Manfi al-Rawi reorganized old FRE [Former Regime Element] soldiers to begin hunting down and killing AQ (26).

Although these efforts ultimately aided the Coalition, they were planned and pursued independently of the Coalition. However:

Not all tribes supported [REDACTED]’s opposition to AQI. For instance, the Albu Bali tribesmen allowed the group to operate in its section of Ramadi, anticipating that an AQI leader would marry the daughter of Albu Bali tribesman and Iraqi Kurdish businessman [REDACTED] thus cementing a relationship between AQI and the tribe (26).

Paradoxically, the growing anti-AQI insurgent resistance to AQI was itself a sign of AQI’s increasingly hegemonic power in Anbar. Rival insurgents realized that AQI was fast becoming too powerful to stop, and began fighting it in accordance with a “now or never”-type logic.

A somewhat humorous case of anti-AQI resistance came from the remaining Baathists, who unsuccessfully attempted to overcome their political irrelevance. From late 2003 onwards, the Baathists played an intermediary role in the insurgency, largely facilitating the efforts and initiatives of other insurgent groups. To recover, some Baathist officers formed a new insurgent group. They failed to attract any recruits, as their intended base of Saddam-era officers, specialists, and troops had long-abandoned Baathism (if they had ever believed in it under Saddam) and now belonged mostly to AQI. The rest belonged to non-Baathist insurgent groups such as Islamic Army of Iraq. Unsurprisingly, the Baathists soon returned to their intermediary role, which was mostly financial:

The ambiguous relationship between AQI and the Ba’athists is most clearly demonstrated by shady dealings in the oil business. Four companies, al-Gadeer, Fajr al-Sham, al-Shira al-‘Abyad and al-Fiou, had authorization from the Iraqi ministry of oil to export petroleum through the Waleed border crossing into [Syria]. Two of these companies (al-Gadeer and Fajr al-Sham) were managed by Ba’athists, and one of them (al-Gadeer) used his profits to fund AQI. […] It is very unlikely that Shi'a Iraqi oil minister Hussein Shahristani and his Shi'a-dominated ministry deliberately awarded export contracts to AQI, but the control of these two companies were one of the major reasons that AQI became fully funded from internal Iraqi sources by early 2006 (27).

The author’s description of these company managers as ‘Baathist’ is misleading, as it is quite clear that these men were full-fledged AQI operatives, regardless of their personal political sympathies, which in any case eventually switched to AQI’s brand of Salafi Jihadism.

Perhaps the most politically consequential development came on February 21, 2006, when four gunmen took over the Al-Askari Shrine (also called the Golden Mosque), rigged it with explosives, and destroyed it. This was an extreme provocation and affront against Shia Islam, as the Shrine “holds the tombs of the 10th and 11th Shi'a imams Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari and was the site of the occultation of the final imam” (27). This was likely planned at the highest level of AQI or MSC, but there is still some mystery on this (discussed below):

The gunmen were associates of AQI leaders [Haytham al-Badri and Hamid Juma Faris Juri al-Sa’idi].^[17] [One of them] had been recruited into AQI by AMZ [Zarqawi] lieutenants in late 2004, leading to a personal meeting with AMZ in July 2005. Even so, he retained his autonomy and was able to conduct attacks at will without approval from a higher organization in contrast to regular AQI leaders in Samarra whose operational decisions were supervised by the shari’ah committee.

Local Iraqi security forces personnel were also likely complicit in the bombing. [REDACTED], a Sunni Turkoman commander of the interior ministry's special commando Lion Brigade in Samarra, met with [REDACTED] who worked as a guard for the Golden Mosque Facilities Protection Service. Both were scheduled to work the night of February 21 but they did not report for duty (28).

In response to the bombing, Shia militias such as the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army unleashed immense sectarian violence against Sunnis in greater Baghdad:

In the days that followed, over 1,300 bodies were found in Baghdad, most of them Sunni. Once these figures were revealed, the ministry of the interior—whose forces were likely responsible for most of these deaths—asked the Shia-controlled ministry of health to cover up the numbers. Shias took over dozens of Sunni mosques and renamed them after the Samarra shrine.^[18]

Indeed, of the 110,000 men under arms in the Ministry of Interior, the majority were members of or sympathetic to sectarian organizations like Badr or Mahdi Army. The Interior Minister himself was a Badr operative, and the special police and other commando units were largely Badr death squads.^[19] These death squads received extensive backing from the US military, in many cases being trained by CIA veterans of the Latin American dirty wars.^[20] This played directly into AQI’s narrative of ‘apostate Rafidah’ being supposedly willing foot-soldiers of the ‘Crusader invaders,’ bolstering its power and greatly worsening the trend towards sectarian civil war. Violence against Iraqi Palestinians (who are Sunni) is illustrative:

According to people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, unknown militants also threatened Palestinians in different Baghdad neighborhoods, distributing flyers ordering them to leave Iraq immediately or be killed. A group calling itself the "Judgment Day Brigades" distributed a flyer to Palestinian homes in al-Hurriyya, al-Dura, al-Za`faraniyya, and al-Baladiyyat neighborhoods. It read in Arabic:

In the Name of God, the Merciful and Beneficent

Warning Warning Warning

To the treacherous Palestinians who collaborate with the takfiri, Wahhabis, the usurpers, and the Baathists loyal to Saddam,^[21] especially those living in al-Dura.

We warn that we will eliminate you all if you do not leave this area for good within ten days.

Whoever takes heed is forgiven.

The Judgment Day Brigades

Some Palestinians also reported receiving similar messages on their mobile phones, ordering them to leave Baghdad immediately or be killed. In other neighborhoods, Palestinians received reports from friendly neighbors that suspicious strangers had come around to ask where Palestinians were living. The neighbors advised the Palestinians to leave their homes immediately.^[22]

As expected, the violence in Baghdad frightened residents in Anbar, stoking older fears of Shias forming an anti-Sunni regime. However, there was little risk of sectarian violence due to the relative homogeneity of the province. For example, the first reaction to the Shrine bombing was a peaceful protest in Shia-majority Nasr wal Salam, roughly 30 miles west of Baghdad. In Fallujah and other Coalition controlled cities, tensions worsened between the mostly Sunni police and the mostly Shia army garrison. Local elites and religious leaders were deeply disturbed by the violence, raising alarms that Iraq was on the verge of open sectarian civil war. Some tried to preempt such a scenario:

[REDACTED] issued a fatwa against Anbaris joining Yazid—an anti-Shi'a vigilante group named after the man who killed the Shi'a Imam Husayn—that sprang up in Baghdad in reaction to the sectarian violence. While not affiliated with AQI, Yazid sought to kill Shi'a imams and destroy Shi'a mosques for every Sunni imam or mosque harmed by Shi'a militias. [REDACTED] shared Yazid's concern about the protection of Sunni mosques against attacks by Shi'a militias, but he was more worried about the prospect of a full-scale civil war, believing that it would play into AMZ’s hands (28).

Interestingly, the Shrine bombing remains unclaimed to this day. MSC never issued an attack claim for it, and the Islamic State movement has never released writings retroactively claiming it. In fact, MSC issued a statement denying responsibility, instead blaming the Iraqi government and Iran for creating a pretense to persecute Sunnis.^[23] There is evidence to suggest that the responsibility for the bombing lay with the small and highly secretive group Jund al-Sahaba.^[24] This was one of AQI’s associate groups and it was especially brutal, even by the standards of Iraqi Salafi Jihadism. Jund prioritized mass-casualty attacks against Shia civilians primarily in Baghdad. On September 23, 2006, Jund claimed a bombing in Sadr City that killed 34 and wounded 36 civilians. This followed several other claimed Jund attacks in Baghdad that killed 50 civilians.^[25] It is little surprise that Jund later joined MSC as a constituent group and became a founding member of Islamic State of Iraq.^[26] It is possible that AQI laundered especially high-casualty strikes in Baghdad through Jund’s name. This would fit a well-established pattern of strategic deception in the Islamic State movement, the aim of which is “injecting confusion and misdirection into opponents’ decision-making and targeting capabilities.”^[27] Jund’s ultra-clandestine nature created additional difficulty in determining AQI’s potential culpability.

It is also worth noting that during the 2003-10 period, the Islamic State movement claimed only 22% of (often high-casualty) suicide bombings despite being responsible for 88% of them.^[28] This 22% was concentrated in the 2007-10 period, when the group finally began to consistently claim mass-casualty attacks. In the earlier period, the massive outcry, both from civilians and other jihadists, forced the movement to deceptively ignore or even deny attacks on civilians.^[29] Still, it is unclear if MSC or Jund was responsible for the Shrine bombing, though I lean towards believing Jund was responsible.

In any case, MSC’s deception efforts worked: “In this case, the media department’s deception was likely a playful gambit designed to infuriate its opponents and provide fuel for conspiracy theories spun by supporters.”^[30] As intended, the confusion about the responsibility for the bombing fueled conspiratorial thinking among Sunnis:

Reactions among Sunnis in Anbar showed that ordinary citizens might be prone to conspiracy theories, but that they well understood the potential implications of the bombing. In Ramadi, residents were divided as to the identity of the perpetrators of the bombing. Many working class residents believed that the Coalition blew up the mosque to give the Iraqi government a pretext to kill Sunnis, while more educated residents believed it to be the result of a [REDACTED] to divide Iraq, possibly as a prelude to invasion. In Zangora, the Albu Risha tribesmen set up their own security network to protect the village from possible attack by either Shi’a militias or hostile foreign powers.

The general population of the Ramadi-Khalidiyah corridor did not believe that a sectarian civil war was imminent, though the security situation in Baghdad and other "mixed" religious areas of Iraq was of concern to them. For these Anbaris, the absence of a functioning police and judicial system in western Ramadi was of far more immediate concern than the area's small and largely unseen Shi'a population.

In and around the Wahhabi hotbed of Zaidon, reactions to the Golden Mosque bombing were quite different. Shi'a were banned from attending prayers at several of the mosques and volunteers armed with wooden or metal sticks carried out patrols to attack any Shi'a they came across (29).

The vicious sectarianism unfolding across Iraq forced even mainstream Sunni Islamist organizations to take up arms to defend Sunnis and, in some cases, attack Shias. AQI promptly took great advantage of this situation. It assassinated the Anbar Revolutionary Group’s leader, Muhammad Sa'ab Manfi al-Rawi, which ended efforts to create an anti-AQI insurgent force in Anbar. It also assassinated another top leader of the 1920 Revolution Brigade. This demoralized anti-AQI holdouts and bolstered AQI’s stature.

By late February, many Anbaris believed that the Coalition or Iraqi security forces were responsible for the Shrine bombing to justify sectarian violence against Sunnis. This allowed AQI to convince Ramadi insurgent groups that Shia militias and the Ministry of Interior were preparing to collectively slaughter or otherwise persecute Sunnis. These groups joined AQI in forming the Joint Committee of the Jihad Platoons of Anbar. This was yet another significant blow to any anti-AQI insurgent efforts, as groups that had staunchly opposed AQI, such as 1920 Revolution Brigades, Jaysh Muhammad, Islamic Resistance Movement, Jaysh al-Mujahidin, and Islamic Army of Iraq–now coalesced under AQI’s and Ansar al-Sunnah’s leadership to form a pan-Sunni umbrella organization to fight Shias. This allowed AQI to effectively take control of local cells and groups belonging to these organizations. Indeed, key leaders of 1920 Revolution, Jaysh Muhammad, and the other groups, along with their followers, were directly incorporated into the MSC, bringing them even closer to AQI and its ideological influence. This informal merger had immediate effects. On February 27, only a day after Manfi al-Rawi’s murder, the Jihad Platoons murdered twelve Shia businessmen in Ramadi and deployed fighters (in addition to AQI’s earlier deployments) to Baghdad to murder Shias. The formation of the Jihad Platoons directly strengthened AQI’s influence elsewhere in Anbar:

AQI leader [REDACTED] who had been the AQI amir for all of western Anbar since August 2005, served as the primary coordinator of the Jihad Platoons, traveling to M'asasa to meet with AQI, Ansar al-Sunna, Jaysh Muhammad, al-Asa'ab al-Iraq, and 1920 Revolution Brigade representatives from Hit, Haditha, Rutbah, Rawah, and Baghdadi in order to consolidate their operations under his leadership. The stated purpose of the Jihad Platoons was to fight against the Shi'a in Baghdad and other mixed areas, yet managed to convince Jaysh Muhammad, 1920 Revolution Brigade, al-Asa'ab al-Iraq, and Ansar al-Sunna to merge or cooperate with AQI in its effort to gain control of the Hit-Haditha corridor. Ironically, the result of what had begun as a sectarian reaction to the Golden Mosque bombing was to expand AQI's dominance within the insurgency from Ramadi to encompass Hit, Haditha, Rawah, Baghdadi, and Rutbah as well (30).

Since Operations Sayyad II and Steel Curtain, the Hit-Haditha corridor had been relatively peaceful despite the significant insurgent penetration, but there soon was increased AQI and allied activity, leading locals to believe that the Coalition’s grasp was fast slipping. This was compounded by AQI’s rapprochement with the Albu Najim sub-tribe of the Jughayfah, with which it had fiercely fought in 2005. AQI compensated tribesmen for homes and vehicles destroyed in the fighting, while the Albu Najim agreed to provide logistical support to AQI and cease informing on its activities. The two also struck a very curious deal:

Additionally, the agreement specified that the Albu Najim would be offered positions of power and influence in the new Islamic State of Iraq. Because the source of the Jughayfi rivalry with AQI lay in AQI stripping the tribe of the power and influence they had wielded in the Haditha area under Saddam Hussein, AQI was able to enlist their support to further infiltrate local government and police forces so that the group could maintain power and control in the Haditha area despite the increased Coalition presence (31).

That such an offer was not only credible but attractive as early as February 2006 speaks to the enormous power of the Sunni insurgency in general and of AQI/MSC in particular. Despite the Coalition’s genuine advances, such as the arrests of top MSC operatives, many Anbaris believed that the Coalition was losing, meaning that any negotiated settlements with them were a dead letter. This agreement also confirms that the Islamic State of Iraq was being planned under Zarqawi’s tenure. It remains a subject of debate whether the declaration of the Islamic State was ordered or planned in Afghanistan by Al Qaida Central, as the Study author later argues, or locally in Iraq by Zarqawi and MSC with minimal Central input, as argued by Nibras Kazimi.^[31] In a video from April of that year, Zarqawi himself provides evidence for the latter interpretation, saying:

To all the jihadists, continue your attacks because we are witnessing the last moments before the Crusaders declare their defeat. Their morale is crashing, so increase your efforts and don't give them a breather. Do not lay down your arms or you will face eternal shame.

I bring you the tidings of the formation of the Shura Council of the Mujaheddin [MSC], which shall be the nucleus of an Islamic state where God's word will govern all. I am one of its members, even though I am still the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers [AQI].

Note how Zarqawi de-centers himself, emphasizing his membership of MSC. A part of this was merely optics, as Zarqawi’s personal celebrity had become cause for some concern among Iraqi jihadists and AQ Central. However, another part was MSC’s genuine authority over AQI, which it formally subsumed–Zarqawi was but one member of the top shura council, albeit a very powerful one.

By mid-March, catalyzed by the Shrine bombing, MSC’s hegemonic hold over the insurgency was increasingly clear across Anbar, although its influence over cities varied. For example, AQI effectively controlled Karmah, which was greatly affected by sectarian violence:

Many Sunnis displaced by this violence from the Shi'a majority provinces of southern Iraq began gathering in tents around Karmah by mid-March. Sheikh Kamis Jasim Dewichat of the al-Kabir Mosque attempted to organize humanitarian efforts for them, but many of the Sunni males had been radicalized against the Shi'a as a result of the violence and as such were perfect fodder for AQI recruiting (33).

In contrast, AQI was unable to penetrate Fallujah city itself, despite controlling peripheral and neighboring settlements. MSC made up for this by seizing control of key parts of Ramadi due to the crushing defeat of the Anbar Peoples’s Committee (a.k.a. the Anbar Revolutionary Group) and the murder of key anti-AQI elites:

These successes enabled AQI to infiltrate the local and provincial government of Ramadi, assume control of black market activity in the city, and establish roots in the outlying tribal areas. Although the dominant AQI presence in Ramadi now represented the most significant threat to the success of the Coalition, AQI did not present an obvious or simple target for direct action. The majority of AQI fighters in Ramadi were local Iraqis who easily blended into the general population and had become adept at avoiding targeting by Coalition and Iraqi security forces.

AQI's infiltration of Anbar's provincial government was also thorough and included members of the command element of the police department. Even Governor Mamoun's secretary [REDACTED] was an AQI informant, who regularly provided the group with detailed information about activities at the Government Center. AQI also exerted control over a large number of mosques, hospitals, schools, universities, local contractors, and businesses, often selling material stolen from Coalition and trade ministry convoys in order to finance operations. To counter popular resentment against their tactics, AQI and its allies posted flyers or went door-to-door to warn residents of impending attacks (33-34).

In addition, AQI regularly threatened the heads of ministries, often literally, to obtain millions in financing and cover their infiltration of the provincial government. The few anti-AQI elements that remained in Ramadi were split amongst each other over whether to prioritize the fight against Shia or to confront the threat posed by AQI. Rank-and-file insurgents usually chose the former. In Haditha and its corridors, MSC’s authority was unquestioned:

AQI maintained a strong influence on Haditha through the direct presence of 700 fighters (only a handful of them foreign) and alliance with other insurgent groups that had joined the Jihad Platoons. By actively recruiting unemployed or disenfranchised Iraqis, AQI was able to keep its strength at a near-constant level in the city. Unemployed military-aged males in Haditha were seen as particularly attractive targets for AQI recruitment: many of them were disappointed by the results of the political process and fearful of Shi'a attack on their city.

AQI also expanded its operational control of Ansar al-Sunna in Haditha. According to the former Ansar al-Sunna amir of the South Karkh in Baghdad. This was due to the fact that AQI and Ansar al-Sunna had renewed negotiations for a merger between the two groups following the creation of the Mujahideen Shura Council. The example of [REDACTED] who was simultaneously the amir of Ansar al-Sunna in Haditha as well as the AQI amir for Bani Dahir, Barwanah, and Haditha shows the extent of the ongoing integration of the two groups (35).

Bani Dahir was a typical AQI-controlled village in the Hit-Haditha corridor. Traditional imams gave way to militant AQI-aligned imams, while mosques regularly recruited AQI fighters and became sites of training and propaganda for the group. Another village, Dulab, became home to dozens, perhaps hundreds, of AQI operatives escaping Coalition operations elsewhere in Anbar and Iraq. They enforced an especially brutal form of sharia, murdering anyone who did not support them. This caused many residents to flee.

In light of these grisly successes, MSC was enormously confident about its ultimate victory. It had subordinated its rivals and was increasingly integrated with its only real challenger, Ansar al-Sunnah. Accordingly, rank-and-file insurgents believed that AQI was beating the Coalition in Anbar and beyond, an assessment with which the Coalition itself would later agree. Any of MSC’s losses in leadership or territory were to be overcome by killing as many US troops as possible. Indeed:

AQI believed that a steady drumbeat of continued attacks and images of dead American soldiers would serve to sway the American media and public opinion against the war in Iraq, forcing the Coalition to withdraw. As a result of these perceptions, the continued killing of American soldiers was made a top priority within AQI no matter what the cost to its own fighting cadre.

AQI perceived that American policymakers and the general public cared more about the individual lives of their soldiers than AQI did about its own fighters, resulting in AQI's greater willingness to sacrifice its fighters who had joined the jihad to expel the Coalition from Iraq or die as martyrs trying. This perception resulted in individual AQI fighters regarding the death of even one Coalition soldier as a personal victory, since every dead soldier was seen as another step towards the Coalition withdrawal from Iraq (36-37).

AQI’s assessment was correct. It was around this period that popular US views soured on the war in Iraq, in no small part due to the growing troop body count. The absence of any anti-imperialist movement in the US meant that imposing high costs on the battlefield would be the only way to defeat the invaders.^[32] Given this optimism, MSC made plans for post-withdrawal Iraq, though these were already being outlined in late 2005. Indeed, an early form of these plans was being implemented throughout that year, as seen with the ‘Islamic Emirate’ formed in western Anbar, centered on Al Qaim. MSC envisioned a jihadist emirate more extreme than even the Taliban’s emirate, that would first take shape in the Sunni provinces of Iraq. Then, the new state would seize the entire country and proceed to conquer the rest of the region, likely starting with Syria due to its geo-strategic importance.^[33] Despite major hurdles like the Sahwa movement, the Islamic State movement very nearly succeeded in the mid-2010s. They were stopped by the immense discontent among their own base of Sunni Arabs and by the multinational coalition against them.

Problems in Anbari Security Forces

The Coalition’s efforts to reform the security forces in Anbar continued to experience significant problems. A persistent issue was delayed or missing wages, particularly in western Anbar, where police had not been paid since November 2005. This was especially concerning to the Coalition, as the chief policing duty in the west, specifically in Al Qaim, was to prevent the entry of foreign fighters and the general traffic of pro-insurgent smugglers. Unsurprisingly, many police deserted from their posts.

The state of the police was far worse in Ramadi, which suffered from empty leadership posts, itself a symptom of the long-standing, close collusion between the police and the insurgency. For example: “In nearby Zangora, the entire Iraqi Highway Patrol had been compromised by the insurgency and was actively working with AQI and the Islamic Army of Iraq” (40-41). The first post-2003 police chief of Ramadi, Ja’adan, was so sympathetic to the insurgency that the Ramadi police simply collapsed. The Coalition fired Ja’adan. Even so, issues persisted since the Ramadi police force retained their insurgent ties. The police departments of other cities were just as compromised, as best seen in Saqlawiyah. There, the police chief called on his insurgent ties to threaten his own station if he were fired from his position. Likewise, a police captain regularly forged identification cards for AQI fighters, and used his ties to the major of internal investigations in Fallujah to cover his tracks.

Alongside insurgent infiltration, an equally important dynamic in Anbari security forces was cynical allegations of collusion between rival security forces:

While much of the reporting during this period gives the impression of a corrupt and thoroughly infiltrated Iraqi police force, at least some of these claims were exaggerated, falsified, or used by their sources against rivals or superiors in an effort by individual police officers to gain personal advantage. There was a moderate degree of corruption and insurgent collusion among the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army, particularly in Fallujah, but the more spectacular claims were the result of continued friction and cultural hostility between the native police and the ‘foreign’ Iraqi army that played out daily in different cities throughout the province (41).

Insurgent sympathies were not unique to the predominantly Sunni police forces and played a role in the predominantly Shia Iraqi army:

These suspicions about the army had some basis in fact. In Ramadi, 70% of the Shi'a soldiers either supported or identified with the Mahdi Army. Believing that the Iraqi government was unable to provide security in Baghdad, these soldiers saw the Mahdi Army as the only reason that Sadr City was safe. While they were prepared to defend Iraq against [REDACTED] they did not support any action against [REDACTED] which they saw as a friend of the Iraqi Shi'a. These sentiments were widely held by many Shi'a soldiers in the Iraqi army after the destruction of the Golden Mosque, though only a few actually advocated sectarian violence and most of the Iraqi soldiers maintained sound relationships in the communities in which they operated.^[34] Because many of these units stationed in Anbar had access to satellite television and would be aware of any friction between the Iraqi government, the Mahdi Army, and the Coalition, it remained an open question as to whether these units would remain professional, head east to assist Sadr, or instigate local violence if fighting broke out between the Coalition and the Mahdi Army (41-42).

It is notable that Muqtada al-Sadr did not order his supporters within the Iraqi Army to mutiny against the Coalition, whose position it could significantly weaken. A major reason that no mutiny transpired was the threat posed by MSC, which the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army could not effectively suppress or combat. Although Coalition forces could not defeat MSC, it could meaningfully suppress and deter it. Therefore, in the Mahdi Army’s eyes, maintaining a symbiotic but uneasy relationship with the Coalition was essential to mitigating Salafi Jihadist power. In effect, this bolstered the Coalition’s hold over Iraq and reduced the possible resistance against it. On the one side was MSC, which had become the ultra-reactionary vehicle for Iraqi national liberation, and on the other side was the Mahdi Army, which had become the vehicle for cementing Sadr’s own political bloc in the Iraqi government.

Sadr was a more complex figure than SCIRI and its Badr Brigade, which were openly US-aligned quislings, but his role was essentially opportunistic. The pattern of Mahdi Army mobilizations against the Coalition closely corresponds with Sadr’s dissatisfaction with his power in the post-2003 order. His one-time deputy, Qays al-Khazali, leader of the “special groups,” explained this in detail in his interrogations while in Coalition detention.^[35] In his fifteenth interrogation, Khazali revealed a high degree of unprofessionalism in the Mahdi Army due to competition among different units, in large part over the attention of Sadr himself. Khazali contrasts this with the professionalism of Sunni insurgent groups. The failure to professionalize and bureaucratize the Mahdi Army speaks to its questionable commitment to fighting the Coalition. In other words, if it really cared to free Iraq, it would have eliminated such corrosive tendencies from itself. That this did not take place contributed to the US’s continued hold over Iraq, and to Sadr’s own weakness in his later attempts to challenge this hold. In the October 2021 Iraqi elections, Sadr’s Iraqi nationalist bloc won handily, much to the shock and rage of the PMF, which forcibly imposed its power in response: “Al-Sadr wanted to replace the consensus-based system developed after the US-led invasion and occupation. The PMF used its display of violence to protect it. Ultimately, they successfully stifled al-Sadr’s majority government allowing all Fateh leaders to remain in power.”^[36] This complicates the PMF’s self-image as an anti-US resistance force.^[37] One wonders how men who came to power on US tanks could ever really threaten the US, but this is a story for another time.

Sectarian and Tribal Violence

In mid-March 2006, the sectarian violence that had been ravaging the rest of Iraq finally erupted in Anbar. One of the first instances of it was in Fallujah, where US officials said that any civil war would be an “internal Iraqi problem,” raising immediate popular alarm. Building on older resentments, residents of Fallujah demanded the removal of the mostly Shia Iraqi army garrison for fear that it would collaborate with Shia militias. This led to open violence between the army and the mostly Sunni police. Tensions were worsened by Fallujah city councillors, who alleged that the Baghdad police and the Ministry of Interior had come under the control of Iran.

Elsewhere in Anbar, population displacement intensified sectarian identity and violence. In Karmah, forty Sunni families arrived to escape violence in southern Iraq, while in Fallujah, thousands who had originally fled to Baghdad during the Second Battle now fled again back to Fallujah. Shia militants dumped the bodies of six Sunnis from Baghdad in Nasr wal Salam as a threat and expression of power to Anbari Sunnis, whom it naturally enraged. Flyers and fatwas urging retaliation against Shia began to circulate, causing Shias from small villages around Nasr wal Salam to flee to Baghdad. Unsurprisingly, Sunni group identity became stronger in Anbar, leading many to view AQI (and even the Coalition) as an anti-Shia buffer, which the group used to boost its image as the “defender of the Sunni faithful.”

AQI’s fraught relations with the tribes once again flared up in March and April. In particular, its old enemy, the Albu Mahal, remobilized the Hamza Battalion to restore the Albu Mahal’s influence in western Anbar. The Battalion targeted the pro-AQI Salmani tribe, which it correctly viewed as a key AQI support base. They assassinated key AQI operatives, specifically propagandists. AQI had already sought to restore its influence in the region, specifically in Al Qaim. The Hamza Battalion’s renewed presence increased the urgency. As a result, AQI began targeting Albu Mahal tribesmen, who responded in kind. The two groups fought each other again as they had in 2005. Elements of the Albu Dhiab attempted to follow the Albu Mahal in fighting AQI (with the 1920 Revolution Brigades’ aid), but many Albu Dhiab leaders supported AQI while dissenters were ruthlessly murdered. In parallel, the Association of Muslim Scholars and its political arm the Tawafuq Front continued their efforts to create a Sunni self-defense militia. Crucially, in negotiations to form this militia, there were no plans of attacking AQI, which in practice ceded ground to it. Interestingly, tribal and sectarian issues came together to aid the Coalition in Karmah, which had up till then been a pro-AQI hotbed. The influx of Sunni refugees led tribal leaders to support the police’s efforts to secure the city and peripheral settlements, which greatly weakened AQI’s footprint.

AQI’s renewed feud with the Albu Mahal coincided with its efforts to restore its power in Western Anbar. It began by infiltrating Barwanah and mounting a major murder and intimidation campaign, which by the end of March led to the dissolution of the city council in Barwanah, Haditha, and Haqlaniyah. The Hit police force disbanded itself as well. The extensive shadow network that MSC had maintained in these cities now activated, enforcing the hudud (“punishments” in sharia) and mounting consistent attacks on Coalition forces. This bolstered MSC’s network in Husaybah, where it formed an associate group to build VBIEDs intended for Baghdad. Interestingly, this group was “ordered by the AQI leadership to limit their attacks on the Iraqi security forces to no more than once every two weeks in order to create a false sense of security and lessen the likelihood of retaliation” (46). Two decades later, the Islamic State uses the same tactic, alongside the deliberate refusal to claim attacks, sowing confusion and evading international attention.

AQI’s Reign in Ramadi

AQI’s hold over Ramadi was decisive, in contrast to western Anbar. By this point, all insurgent groups operating in the city were subordinate to AQI, which now was capable of mounting complex and devastating attacks on Coalition and Iraqi security forces. Attacks were rigorously planned and highly coordinated:

The al-Hajj Mosque in the Qatana district served as AQI's primary command and control node during its attacks on the Government center. From the al-Hajj Mosque, [REDACTED] were able to oversee attacks and issue coded orders by playing cassettes containing select portions from the Qur’an from the mosque loudspeakers. […]

AQI planning for complex attack and ambushes was often highly detailed, involving the use of sand tables, written operational orders, and precision timing. The overwhelming majority of AQI fighters active in Ramadi were Iraqi nationals who were familiar with the urban terrain and whose sophisticated attacks took full advantage of constricted lines of sight, covered support-by-fire positions, pre-registered IDF, and the occasional use of synchronized SVBIEDs to achieve initial surprise against hardened positions. At any given time, AQI was able to mass up to 150 fighters, drivers, mortarmen, spotters, and scouts, with most major attacks involving up to thirty fighters against 3-4 separate targets (46-47).

Further, by April, AQI had become the largest organized crime syndicate in Ramadi. It controlled networks of vehicle theft, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, and most importantly, black market gas sales. In addition to financial self-sufficiency, this granted the group especially tight control over the population. Much like its military operations, MSC’s criminal activity was rigorously strategized, with focus on three points:

1. Exploit the Coalition's civil-military reconstruction contracts by gathering information on reconstruction or economic development initiatives to gauge which Iraqi contractors are most likely to win Coalition contracts. The contractors were then targeted for infiltration, extortion, or co-opting to force them to contribute a part of their profits to AQI.

2. Extort money from local government officials or tribal leaders with access to government funding through kidnapping and protection rackets. Kidnapping targets were not limited to the affluent, but the Ramadi elite was a favored target due to their greater access to government funding and their personal wealth.

3. Vehicle theft allowed AQI to turn a 100% profit on the Ramadi black market. This was the least preferred of the three options because vehicle theft was manpower intensive and exposed AQI fighters to Coalition attack.

Each district of the city was put under the command of a different amir. For instance in the Albu Dhiab area, AQI amir [REDACTED] controlled propane deliveries in the area, only allowing AQI supporters and their families to receive the fuel. Because most Iraqi families relied on propane to cook their meals, this was effectively a means of starving the opposition into submission. Setting up a network of secret police made up entirely of formerly Ba'athist teenagers, [REDACTED] authorized them to engage in violent crime against anyone suspected of betraying AQI (47-48).

MSC’s dominance in Ramadi attracted international jihadist attention, with a major AQ emissary arriving in the city and issuing a fatwa enthusiastically endorsing the group’s activities. This further boosted MSC’s prestige in global jihadism. Interestingly, pro-AQI criminal groups used this fatwa to justify their increasingly craven criminality. However, neither the fatwa nor MSC’s enormous power inspired much popular love or respect. The most salient features of MSC’s reign was its intense criminality, brutal form of sharia, and intimidation campaigns. The population feared the group and was generally wary of the insurgency, but perceived it as a lesser evil to the Coalition and Baghdad. Thus, AQI felt no need to win popular love, believing that this would come once the group had prevailed over all rivals.

MSC’s total subordination of the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) is quite illustrative of inter-insurgent dynamics at this stage of the insurgency. The national leadership of the IAI staunchly opposed MSC, but this had no relevance on the ground in Anbar. By late April, the IAI’s provincial forces in Anbar actively integrated into the MSC, with local and regional commanders taking orders from the MSC. The IAI head of Anbar joined the MSC itself. Interestingly, the primary backers of IAI continued to finance the group’s Anbari forces despite this apparent split from the national leadership. In effect, these backers financed MSC and strengthened its already quite powerful position.

In light of this political dominance but flagging public opinion in Anbar, AQI top leadership sent a message to a senior commander named Abu Usama, making these key points:

– Sunnis were never to be killed, especially not in a brutal fashion, unless they were known to have collaborated with the Coalition or the Iraqi government.

– Sunni civilians were not to be targeted for killing, only collaborators, soldiers, or police. If they were targeted for killing, it was better if it was carried out discreetly rather than in a public venue.

– Negotiations were to be held with tribal leaders cooperating with the government before they were targeted for assassination. If they agreed to cease cooperating with the government following these negotiations, they were to be left alone.

– Albu Nimr tribe had to be targeted in Hit, preferably discreetly, though the AQI leadership did authorize the use of “missiles” against them.

– AQI activity in Rawah and al-Qaim were currently at unacceptably low levels (50).

One can observe an early form of the Islamic State’s counter-Sahwa strategy here, which emphasized a “carrot and stick” approach to non-AQI aligned Sunnis. This new strategy may have also been motivated by AQ Central Leadership. On March 30, Zarqawi allegedly left Iraq to meet an emissary from AQ Central, who demanded an explanation for his decision to wage sectarian war against Iraqi Shia, despite explicit orders to the contrary from Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zarqawi’s exact explanation has not been found, but he had historically justified his intransigence on the grounds that he knew the scene in Iraq better than did AQ Central Leadership. Indeed, the latter had inadvertently created this loophole in its directives to Zarqawi, which it often concluded by stating that the Iraqi jihadists knew their theater best. AQI typically used this line to justify its activities.

More structurally, AQI’s consistent defiance of AQ Central was possible largely due to its financial independence. Although organized crime formed a large portion of its finances, by far the most significant source of AQI’s funding was the illicit fuel trade. It is worth quoting the Study at length:

As we have seen, AQI was benefiting from their relationship with two of the four oil companies licensed to transport oil across the border into [Syria]. By the end of March reports indicated AQI had begun working with Jaysh al-Mujahideen, its associate group al-Fursan Brigade, and criminal elements in Bayji to profit even further from oil smuggling, producing as much as $50,000 a week for the group in revenue. Inadequate law enforcement and high-level corruption throughout the Ministry of Oil and the North Oil Company created conditions that AQI was able to exploit. Smuggling 10-100 tanker trucks each week from Bayji to other regions of Iraq and neighboring states such as [REDACTED], AQI was able to sell oil on the black market or to foreign buyers at more than three times the Iraqi government-subsidized price.

By the end of April, AQI was acquiring fuel for resale on the Ramadi black market directly from the state-owned refinery in Bayji using official government requisition forms and manifests. AQI supporters trucked the oil to Ramadi then drove the empty trucks back to Bayji and extorted or bribed officials into refueling them. Their oil trucks then returned to Bayji with the same manifest for safe passage. AQI continued to reuse manifests until the next authorized allotments of fuel was made, at which time it received new manifests as they were issued.

AQI's operation was made possible by Anbar's acting director-general for oil distribution [REDACTED] who worked for [REDACTED]. Formerly the manager of the Ramadi distribution terminal, [REDACTED] had originally acquired fuel for AQI to resell on the black market in return for a share of the profit. [REDACTED], apparently dissatisfied with this relationship, kidnapped [REDACTED]’s son, releasing him ten days later after receiving $50,000 in weapons and vehicles. Under the terms of his [REDACTED] agreed to provide AQI with official requisition forms, giving the group access to a source of funds that enabled it to expand its activity in Anbar.

Later reports indicated estimates that AQI's monopoly on black market fuel sales in Ramadi provided the group with $500,000 a month from the sale of benzene alone. When combined with the full spectrum of AQI's other criminal activity (extortion, kidnapping, and hijacking), the group's total monthly income amounted to several million dollars, more than enough to cover its operating costs several times over. As a result, excess capital was divided up with the rest of AQI or invested in legitimate real estate or small business ventures in Ramadi that enabled AQI to make significant inroads into the provincial economy (51-52).

This was technically not AQI’s first foray into legitimate businesses in Iraq. In 2002-03, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (a.k.a. Abu Ayyub al-Masri) ran a Pepsi kiosk in Baghdad while setting the stage for Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which was formed in mid-2003 at the Rawah Camp.^[38]Returning to 2006, this wealth allowed AQI/MSC to become enormously powerful in Anbar.

By April, MSC had restored its previous influence in almost all major Anbari cities. In Hit, the police force was disbanded, leaving over 800 police officers unemployed. AQI and AS began to recruit former police by offering to pay them the same wages and to provide support to their families. Over 100 former police took the offer. AQI and AS made due on their promise, likely enticing further recruitment. New members were sent to training camps in the west.

Meanwhile, in Haditha, AQI and AS had fully integrated their organizations and activities, which greatly contributed to their firm hold over the city. Their murder and intimidation campaign halted any attempts to restore the civilian government or police. Similar events took place in Anah, Rawah, and Kubaysah. The Dulab area especially grew in importance:

A significant number of Iraqi and foreign AQI fighters flowed in and out of the Dulab area to avoid detection by the Coalition. Much of AQI's Anbar leadership based itself in the Dulab and Albu Hyatt areas north of Hit and south of Haditha. The Dulab area in particular provided quick access into the major cities along the Euphrates River as well as an easy escape into the desert to avoid Coalition operations (53).

Likewise, AQI’s influence over Baghdadi (not to be confused with Baghdad) illustrates its penetration of Anbari village life:

AQI began to reassert its authority in Baghdadi first by sabotaging the water treatment plant on April 10, leaving the town without water, and later by murdering fifteen civilians outside the Baghdadi Municipal Building. AQI's renewed activity in Baghdadi was a result of the efforts of its local associate group al-Asa'ab al-Asham led by [REDACTED]. This group had been specifically created by AQI to target the Baghdadi police and was supported financially by [former] Brigadier General Sutayir Muhammad Su'ud al-‘Ubaydi, who registered the group's members as personnel in the "Baghdadi Electricity Police." Among al-Asa'ab al-Sham's more infamous activities were posing as police recruiters and convincing a group of fourteen Baghdadi residents to sign up with promises of training and signing bonuses. They then proceeded to interrogate the would-be recruits before executing them outside the Baghdadi Municipal Building (53-54).

Note AQI’s growing power over seemingly all aspects in civilian life. In Ramadi, the group controlled fuel distribution, which allowed it to coerce the civilian population into supporting it. In Baghdadi, the group shut off the water to project power and cow the population into obedience, which was cemented by the targeting of police recruits. The two notable exceptions to AQI’s comeback were Fallujah and Al Qaim, which remained under Coalition control despite growing attempts to infiltrate and stage attacks in the cities.

AQI Consolidates in Ramadi

By mid-April, Ramadi was the central node of MSC’s hold over Anbar and, to a lesser extent, Sunni Iraq in general. The lingering insurgent dissent to AQI had completely dissipated. Most Islamic Army of Iraq fighters throughout Anbar had defected. Indeed, AQI’s intimidation campaign was so advanced that it could successfully order rivals to pledge allegiance to Zarqawi or join MSC. AQ Central was naturally pleased with AQI’s successes despite the latter’s continued recalcitrance and ultra-extremism. In this period, AQ Central sent an emissary to Ramadi to disburse significant funds to AQI and advise its military and organizational efforts. The emissary had been a two-year combat veteran of the fighting in Afghanistan and a personal deputy to Usama bin Ladin, highlighting the confidence Central leadership had in the Iraqi jihadist enterprise. However, this did not translate into increased respect for Zarqawi himself. The emissary met local AQI commanders rather than Zarqawi or his deputies. By this point, Zarqawi’s charismatic type of leadership was likely becoming a problem, so AQ Central began forming its own relations with the lower ranks. This is why Zarqawi’s death had so little effect on AQI/MSC’s operations or on its relationship to AQ Central–the organization had been fully bureaucratized.^[39] The emissary and his Iraqi counterparts’ efforts were highly successful, as they accelerated the already rapid subordination of rival insurgents. The Ramadi, Fallujah, and Zaidon branches of several prominent insurgent groups agreed to consolidate under AQI and adopt its rank structure and aims.

AQI’s significant financial network also continued to grow exponentially. To quote from the Study:

By this time in late April, AQI's financial network had grown so large in Ramadi that it required its own bureaucracy to adequately manage its finances. [REDACTED (plural)] oversaw the administration of AQI finances (including the khams) from central Ramadi. Their aides were the direct links between AQI cells and their criminal allies, who extorted money from the government contracting process.

By May 2006, AQI's financial network was sufficiently organized, mature, and robust that the average salary of a starting AQI fighter in Ramadi was $1,000 a month; the next highest paying group was Ansar al-Sunna at $250 a month. There were also regular bonuses of $200 per successful IED attack, $600-700 for attacking and destroying a Humvee, and $7,000 for shooting down a Coalition helicopter. The only exception was in Fallujah, where the less established AQI financial network could only afford to pay salaries of $190-380 a month for starting fighters and $760 a month for cell leaders. To compensate, the group offered all new members a free car regardless of their rank (56).

At the same time, AQI continued improving its communications network and operational security. From the Study:

To manage its operations in Ramadi, AQI relied on an elaborate courier network to transmit verbal or written orders to subordinate commanders in order to prepare for complex attacks against the Coalition targets in a timely manner. When the local or regional AQI leadership had determined a target to attack in Ramadi, a time and rally point was relayed through the chain of command using couriers at various mosques.

Given the sheer number of cells and allied groups that AQI could organize to carry out complex attacks, the use of human couriers reflected a dedication to operational security by [REDACTED] and his subordinates. AQI fighters in Ramadi were told that all cellular, landline, and highpowered cordless phones were monitored by the Coalition or its informants. The AQI leadership in Ramadi also began a systematic destruction of the landline system and cell phones towers throughout eastern Anbar to impose communication discipline on their subordinates by force.

The result of AQI’s efforts in Ramadi was clear: key areas of the city now saw a daily series of running gun battles between AQI and Coalition troops. While over 200 AQI members were killed by the Coalition in Ramadi between March and April 2006, the majority were low-ranking fighters. AQI's robust infrastructure in Ramadi meant that it was able to easily regenerate personnel losses (56).

The destruction of telecommunications systems also hampered the Coalition’s signal intelligence gathering efforts. The operational benefits of AQI’s control over Ramadi went far beyond direct confrontation with Coalition forces. Again from the Study:

AQI now used the region surrounding Ramadi as a hub for activity throughout western and central Iraq, employing a system of relatively unregulated roads to transport personnel and materials throughout Anbar and into Baghdad, Karbala, and Diyala. These established transit routes were used despite a constant Coalition presence. By using cells from other regions they hoped to avoid detection of AQI infrastructure in the local area by Coalition or Iraqi forces. AQI leaders met and planned anti-Coalition and anti-government operations in remote areas of the Ramadi-Haditha corridor, transporting assets throughout Iraq using roads through al-Tash. AQI assets traveling specifically to eastern Iraq (including SVBIEDs destined for Baghdad) also used roads through Amariyah and continued towards Mahmudiyah or Jurf al-Sakhr.

VBIEDs and suicide bombers intended for use outside Ramadi were kept in the areas surrounding Ramadi to facilitate their infiltration. AQI was not concerned about operational security in the Ramadi area because much of central Ramadi and its surrounding area were considered "safe" by the group. In light of this perception, AQI believed it could consolidate personnel in Ramadi with little chance that its operations would be compromised. AQI used the areas north of Ramadi such as Saddamiyah and Lake Thar Thar to transport personnel and materials into the northern provinces of Iraq to carry out attacks in Mosul and Tikrit.

Ramadi was thus the new center of AQI efforts in Anbar and possibly throughout Iraq. In the absence of similar success in Baghdad, AQI sought to control Ramadi and the surrounding countryside. If this strategy succeeded, AQI would be in a position to finance, organize, and control a large terrorist organization that would be capable of carrying out mass casualty attacks in Baghdad, [REDACTED (locations)] at will (57).

The successes in Ramadi permitted AQI to renew its efforts in Fallujah, where it convinced other insurgent groups to consolidate their resources and begin attacking the mostly Shia Iraqi Army garrison. MSC’s goals were to distract the Coalition from Ramadi, weaken Iraqi security forces in the city, cast themselves as defenders of Sunnis, and recenter Fallujah in mainstream and jihadist media.

AQI’s enormous successes came at great cost to its popularity with ordinary Anbari and ideological purity in its ranks. Its brutality had significantly tarnished its project image as the ‘righteous defender of Sunnis.’ By early May, the Anbari population perceived MSC as both a massive criminal syndicate and a Salafi Jihadist organization. Its large size and wide influence meant that it had absorbed most criminality in Anbari society, attracting a number of opportunistic figures. Indeed, a growing number of lower commanders used MSC’s resources for financial gain and criminal influence. This contrasted with the state of the organization just months earlier in 2006, let alone previous years, when AQI’s rank-and-file were mostly ideologically committed to its brand of Salafi Jihadism: “Common criminals and thugs who had once operated independently now served AQI, committing violent acts in the name of AQI, but in reality for their personal profit” (58). This dynamic was captured in the story of Samih Hazim Madhat al-Ghazzawi.

In 2006-07, Ghazzawi was a low level leader in the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) who joined for opportunistic, criminal reasons. Then, around 2008, when ISI was harshly repressed in Anbari society by the Sahwa movement, Ghazzawi fled Iraq to Saudi Arabia to escape arrest and execution. Later in 2010, he cut a deal with Baghdad, where in exchange for amnesty, Ghazzawi became a Sahwa officer in Anbar. This allowed Ghazzawi to once again profit from Anbari organized crime, but as a pro-US tribal ‘shaykh.’ In every case, his decisions were motivated by his ability to escape any real consequences and gain criminal profit. Ghazzawi was thus typical of the less ideological members of the AQI and its successors.

Ever looming in the background, tribal resistance to AQI significantly escalated in May, when a major Ubaydi shaykh convinced nine Ubaydi sub-shaykhs to attack and arrest any AQI forces. Together, they represented 6,000 tribesmen in Western Anbar, where AQI had been struggling to restore its previous influence. Alongside the Ubaydi shaykhs, wings of the Albu Nimr, Albu Mahal, and other tribes also joined forces against AQI. Their respective tribal leaders issued letters to tribes in the east to follow their example, to no success. In part, this was due to divisions within the Albu Nimr, Albu Mahal, and other tribal groups: “Thousands of Albu Nimr, Albu Mahal, and Albu ‘Ubayd tribesmen worked for or at least supported AQI and thousands more thought that the sheikhs issuing the anti-AQI statements were not legitimate representatives of their tribes” (59). As already stated, despite growing unpopularity, AQI still had real sway in large parts of Anbari and Sunni Iraqi society. At minimum, it was perceived as a lesser evil to the Coalition and Baghdad. This would drastically change with the Sahwa movement in the fall of 2006.

Appendix: Photo Gallery

1. I am unconvinced that the Assad regime ever cared about Baathist Pan-Arabism except as a justification to persecute and disenfranchise Kurds.

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2. For an account of Fallujah during this period, see: Truls Hallberg Tønnessen, "The Islamic Emirate of Fallujah," paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, Montreal, March 16–19, 2011, https://www.academia.edu/27774340/The_Islamic_Emirate_of_Fallujah; see also the translated biographies of “distinguished martyrs” on my Substack: https://robashlar.substack.com/.

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3. All parenthetical citations refer to: “Chapter Six AQI Dominates the Insurgency (2006),” in Study of the Insurgency in Anbar Province, Iraq, ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/1007.%20Chapter%206.pdf.

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4. Sunni insurgent forces that were open to reconciling with the Coalition and Baghdad.

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5. These acronyms refer, respectively, to Improvised Explosive Device and Vehicle-Borne IED.

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6. These were: Jaysh al-Taifa al-Mansurah, Jaysh al-Sunnah, Ansar al-Tawhid, Islamic Jihad Brigades, and the al-Ghuruba Brigade. The first group was originally formed by Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, but became an AQI associate group once he joined AQI.

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7. I owe this observation to: Nibras Kazimi, “The Caliphate Attempted: Zarqawi’s Ideological Heirs, Their Choice for a Caliph, and the Collapse of Their Self-Styled Islamic State of Iraq,” Hudson Institute, July 1, 2008, https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/the-caliphate-attempted-zarqawi-s-ideological-heirs-their-choice-for-a-caliph-and-the-collapse-of-their-self-styled-islamic-state-of-iraq; note the title’s resemblance to the title of Hanna Batatu’s magnificent book about Iraq–this is almost certainly intentional on Kazimi’s part.

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8. It is worth noting that even in this early period, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi often referred to ISI as al-Dawlat al-Islam (State of Islam) or al-Dawlat al-Islamiya (Islamic State), simply omitting the mention of Iraq.

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9. I owe the following argument to Mr0rangetracker.

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10. Cf. Christopher Swift, “Arc of Convergence: AQAP, Ansar al-Shari`a and the Struggle for Yemen,” CTC Sentinel 5, no. 6 (June 2012); see also: Sasha Gordon, “Abyani Tribes and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen,” Critical Threats, July 25, 2012, https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/abyani-tribes-and-al-qaeda-in-the-arabian-peninsula-in-yemen; Katherine Zimmerman, “Insurgency in Yemen: The New Challenge to American Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” Critical Threats, March 19, 2012, https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/insurgency-in-yemen-the-new-challenge-to-american-counter-terrorism-strategy.

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11. Gaith Abdul-Ahad, “Al-Qaida's wretched utopia and the battle for hearts and minds,” Guardian, April 30, 2012, www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/30/alqaida-yemen-jihadis-sharia-law.

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12. Saeed Al Batati, “Yemen: The truth behind al-Qaeda’s takeover of Mukalla,” Al Jazeera, September 12, 2015, www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/9/16/yemen-the-truth-behind-al-qaedas-takeover-of-mukalla.

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13. Bernard Fall, “The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” Naval War College Review 18, no. 3 (1965), 46-57.

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14. Although Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC) subsumed AQI, I use the two acronyms interchangeably since AQI was the dominant organization within MSC.

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15. Cf. Raymond Baker, Shereen T. Ismael and Tareq Y. Ismael, Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered (Pluto Press, 2009).

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16. I recently discovered that Janabi is still alive and well, despite his support for Islamic State in the 2010s. He apparently defected, escaped Iraq, and now lives in Turkey where he is still a preacher. He would make for a fascinating interview. Here is a new video of Janabi (on the right): www.youtube.com/watch?v=07TplGA5q4o.

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17. Craig Whiteside, “Lying to Win: The Islamic State Media Department’s Role in Deception Efforts,” The RUSI Journal 165, no. 1 (2020), 130-41.

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18. Nir Rosen, “Anatomy of a Civil War,” Boston Review, November 8, 2006, www.bostonreview.net/articles/rosen-anatomy-civil-war/.

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19. Andrew Buncombe and Patrick Cockburn, “Iraq’s Death Squads: On the Brink of Civil War,” The Independent, February 26, 2006, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-s-death-squads-on-the-brink-of-civil-war-6108236.html.

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20. Mona Mahmood, Maggie O’Kane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith, “Revealed: Pentagon’s Link to Iraqi Torture Centres,” The Guardian, May 6, 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link.

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21. As Nir Rosen observes (cf. “Anatomy”), these terms of abuse were dog-whistles for any Sunnis that did not acquiesce to Shia militias–or any Sunnis at all.

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22. “Nowhere to Flee: The Perilous Situation of Palestinians in Iraq,” Human Rights Watch, September 9, 2006, www.hrw.org/report/2006/09/09/nowhere-flee/perilous-situation-palestinians-iraq.

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23. Whiteside, “Lying to Win.”

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24. I owe this theory to Mr0rangetracker on Twitter. See: x.com/Mr0rangetracker/status/1260989012359163906?t=KlSykQBhHGtO659a-IUFeQ&s=19.

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25. “Dozens die in Baghdad blast,” Al Jazeera, September 23, 2006, www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/9/23/dozens-die-in-baghdad-blast.

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26. See: Evan F. Kohlmann, “State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq: 2006,” Global Terror Alert, December 29, 2006, www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/54/54F87F15D446471E9A12A4A0324BCB87_iraqinsurgency1206.pdf.

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27. Whiteside, “Lying to Win.”

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28. Katherine Seifert and Clark McCauley, “Suicide Bombers in Iraq, 2003–2010: Disaggregating Targets Can Reveal Insurgent Motives and Priorities,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 5 (2014), 63-87. Cited in: Whiteside, “Lying to Win.”

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29. This effort has had the infuriating effect of Islamic State supporters still today insisting that IS never deliberately targeted civilians, at least in Iraq. These supporters often add the qualifier: “Rafidah [Shia] don’t count as civilians.”

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30. Whiteside, “Lying to Win.”

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31. I lean to the latter interpretation for reasons to be discussed in a subsequent installment.

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32. This holds true for virtually every war waged by the US or other rich countries. Until the population at large suffers from the war, the most effective way to force withdrawal is high battlefield costs.

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33. Cf. Nibras Kazimi, Syria through Jihadist Eyes (Hoover Institute, 2010).

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34. This claim is contradicted by the numerous reports (in the Study itself) of local distaste for the Iraqi Army. This was best shown by the increasingly intense fights between the mostly Shia Iraqi Army units and the mostly Sunni police forces. The latter were closer to local communities than the former, suggesting that locals resented the garrisons. However, it is certain that many Iraqi Army soldiers had individually good relationships with the communities in which they were stationed. The key distinction is that these positive relations did not extend to the Iraqi Army as a collective force, whether on the unit or garrison levels, let alone the institutional level.

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35. See: “The Qayis al-Khazali Papers,”

    www.aei.org/the-qayis-al-khazali-papers/.

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36. Renad Mansour, “The Political Logic Behind Iraq’s Fragmented Armed Forces,” MERIP 306 (Spring 2023, https://merip.org/2023/04/the-political-logic-behind-iraqs-fragmented-armed-forces/; for an extremely rigorous but right-wing analysis, see: Michael Knights, Crispin Smith, and Hamdi Malik, “Discordance in the Iran Threat Network in Iraq: Militia Competition and Rivalry,” CTC Sentinel 14, no. 8 (October 2021), https://ctc.westpoint.edu/discordance-in-the-iran-threat-network-in-iraq-militia-competition-and-rivalry/; also see: Knights, Smith, and Malik, “Iraq’s New Regime Change: How Tehran-Backed Terrorist Organizations and Militias Captured the Iraqi State,” CTC Sentinel 16, no. 11 (December 2023), https://ctc.westpoint.edu/iraqs-new-regime-change-how-tehran-backed-terrorist-organizations-and-militias-captured-the-iraqi-state/.

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37. When assessing the PMF’s recent strikes on American bases, Knights, et al (op. cit., December 2023) conclude: “A final and possibly controversial observation regarding muqawama strikes on U.S. sites during the Gaza crisis (at least until the time of writing on December 19 [2023]) has been an apparent ‘casualty-limiting’ intent witnessed across most strikes, whereby the intent usually appears performative but is mostly not optimized to cause U.S. fatalities (and thus trigger significant U.S. retaliation).” Earlier in 2024, the PMF suspended this campaign against US forces ‘to avoid embarrassing the Iraqi government.’ The strikes resumed later in 2024 but maintained the same pattern identified by Knights et al in December 2023, if not even weaker than in that period (as of writing on 31 March, 2025, the PMF has not resumed strikes despite the resumption of the genocide in Gaza). See: Ameer al-Kaabi, Michael Knights, and Hamdi Malik, “Iraqi Militias Downscaling Their Anti-Israel Actions,” Washington Institute, November, 26, 2024, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iraqi-militias-downscaling-their-anti-israel-actions.

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38. Nibras Kazimi, “‘What Was That All About?’ Flawed Methodologies in Explaining the Origins of ISIS (2003–2013),” Bustan: The Middle East Book Review 8, no. 2 (2017), https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.8.2.0151.

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39. Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside and Charlie Winter, eds., ISIS Reader: Milestone Texts of the Islamic State Movement (Oxford University Press, 2020).

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