Ansar al-Islam

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This article is about the Kurdish Islamist organization. For the Pakistani Islamist organization, see Ansar-ul-Islam (Pakistan).

Ansar al-Islam (Arabic: انصار الاسلام, Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam and Jihad. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq it controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border. It has used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.

The village of Biyara, main base of the Ansar al-Islam 2001-2003
The village of Biyara, main base of the Ansar al-Islam 2001-2003

Contents

[edit] Origins

Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Ansar al-Islam fortified a number of villages along the Iranian border, under the protection of Iranian artillery support. [1] The local villagers were subjected to harsh sharia laws; musical instruments were destroyed and singing forbidden. The only school for girls in the area was destroyed, and all pictures of women removed from merchandise labels. Sufi shrines were desecrated and members of the Kaka'i (a religious group also known as Ahl-e Haqq) were forced to convert to Islam or flee.[2]

Ansar al-Islam quickly instigated a number of attacks on the peshmerga (armed forces) of the PUK, on one occasion massacring 53 prisoners and beheading them. Several assassination attempts on leading PUK politicians were also made with car bombs and snipers.

Ansar al-Islam comprised about 300 armed men, many of these veterans from the Soviet-Afghan War, and a proportion being neither Kurd nor Arab. Ansar al-Islam is alleged to be connected to al-Qaeda, and provided an entry point for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other Afghan veterans to enter Iraq.

According to the United States, they have established facilities for the production of poisons, including ricin. The U.S. also claimed that Ansar al-Islam had links with Saddam Hussein, thus claiming a link between Hussein and al-Qaeda. Mullah Krekar denied this claim, and declared his hostility to Saddam[3]

Many local Kurds believe Saddam was happy to see an armed opposition engaging the PUK.[citation needed] Scholarly consensus is, however, that no formal links existed, though Baathist intelligence probably had infiltrated the group.

[edit] Operations after the invasion

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it gave air support to a combined US Special Forces/PUK-attack on the Ansar al-Islam enclave, which did not draw Iranian artillery fire. Most of the Ansar al-Islam fighters escaped into Iran, where they were disarmed but not arrested. Many have since returned to Iraq and joined various armed groups fighting the occupation.

Ansar al-Islam detonated a suicide car bomb on March 22, 2003, killing Australian journalist Paul Moran and several others. The group is also thought to have been responsible for an September 9, 2003 attempted bombing of a United States Department of Defense office in Arbil, which killed three people.

On February 1, 2004 suicide bombings hit parallel ID-celebrations arranged by the two main Kurdish parties, PUK and KDP, in the Kurdish capital of Arbil, killing 109 and wounding more than 200 partygoers. Responsibility for this attack was claimed by the then unknown group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in support of "our brothers in Ansar al-Islam."

While many former activists in Ansar al-islam have joined the Ansar al-Sunnah and similar goups[4], Kurdish authorities claim the organization is still active in Iraqi Kurdistan. In September 2006 11 alleged members of Ansar al-Islam were hanged in Arbil.

Ansar al-Islam has an extensive network in Europe organizing finance and support for armed attacks within Iraq. Several members of such groups have been arrested in European countries such as Germany and Sweden.[citation needed]

[edit] Alleged activities and attacks

[edit] 2003

  • October 27: Ansar al-Islam and Zarqawi are blamed for car bombings that kill 35 and wound 200 in Baghdad, including at the headquarters of the Red Cross according to an MSNBC article.[5]
  • November 12: According to an MSNBC article, Ansar al-Islam is suspected of a suicide truck bombing at the headquarters of Italy's paramilitary police in Nasiriyah that killed more than 30.[6]

[edit] 2004

[edit] Alleged links to Saddam

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In the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, then United States Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 "Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered Al Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept Al Qaida from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven."[8] Since that time, some have maintained Saddam had links to Ansar al-Islam, while others argue Saddam infiltrated Ansar al-Islam for intelligence gathering but didn't actively assist the group. The general consensus of experts, as well as the conclusion of the intelligence community and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is that Saddam was infiltrating the group but that the two parties remained hostile to each other and did not establish a collaborative relationship.

Colin Powell has since acknowledged that his speech presented no hard evidence of collaboration between Saddam and al-Qaeda; he told reporters at a State Department press conference that "I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed."[9] However, after Powell left office, he acknowledged that he was skeptical of the evidence presented to him for the speech. He told Barbara Walters in an interview that he considered the speech a "blot" on his record and that he feels "terrible" about assertions that he made in the speech that turned out to be false. He said, "There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me." When asked specifically about a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection, Powell responded, "I have never seen a connection. … I can't think otherwise because I'd never seen evidence to suggest there was one."[10]

The following are press articles that mention alleged links.

On April 21, 2002, the Telegraph.co.uk reported

"Members of Saddam's Republican Guard have been seen in two villages run by militants from Ansar al-Islam inside Iraqi Kurdistan, an area which is otherwise controlled by anti-Saddam factions. They were sighted by Western military advisers on a reconnaissance mission. 'Five large trucks coming from Jalawla [in Baghdad-controlled Iraq] unloaded arms and weapons in the Halabjah area,' said one witness. 'They were taken to hides and caves in the mountains.' The haul is said to have included machine-guns, anti-personnel mines and C4 plastic explosive. Links between Ansar al-Islam and Saddam were also alleged recently by Qassem Hussein Mohamed, who claims that he worked for Baghdad's Mukhabarat intelligence for 20 years. Saddam had clandestinely supported Ansar al-Islam for several years, he said. '[Ansar] and al-Qa'eda groups were trained by graduates of the Mukhabarat's School 999 - military intelligence.'"[11]

A July 2002 article for the BBC reported that one of the leaders of Ansar al-Islam was Abu Wa'il, a former Iraqi army officer. According to the report:

"A captured Iraqi intelligence officer of 20 years' standing, Abu Iman al-Baghdadi, who is held by the PUK, said Abu Wa'il is actively manipulating the Ansar on behalf of Iraqi intelligence. 'I was captured by the Kurds after Iraqi intelligence sent me to check what was happening with Abu Wa'il, following rumours that he'd been captured and handed over the CIA,' al-Baghdadi said. He added that Baghdad smuggles arms to the Ansar through the Kurdish area, and is using the group to make problems for the PUK, one of the opposition factions ranged against Saddam Hussein. 'The Ansar's basic allegiance is to al-Qaeda, but some of them were trained in Iraq and went Afghanistan,' he said, interviewed in a Kurdish prison. 'When the Americans attacked, they came here through Iran. Iraq is supporting them and using them to carry out attacks.'"[12]

Writing for The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg described his visit to Kurdistan in March 2002. In the article, he writes:

"When I got to Sulaimaniya, I visited a prison run by the intelligence service of the Patriotic Union. The prison is attached to the intelligence-service headquarters. It appears to be well kept and humane; the communal cells hold twenty or so men each, and they have kerosene heat, and even satellite television. For two days, the intelligence agency permitted me to speak with any prisoner who agreed to be interviewed. I was wary; the Kurds have an obvious interest in lining up on the American side in the war against terror. But the officials did not, as far as I know, compel anyone to speak to me, and I did not get the sense that allegations made by prisoners were shaped by their captors. The stories, which I later checked with experts on the region, seemed at least worth the attention of America and other countries in the West. The allegations include charges that Ansar al-Islam has received funds directly from Al Qaeda; that the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein has joint control, with Al Qaeda operatives, over Ansar al-Islam; that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992; that a number of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam; and that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan. If these charges are true, it would mean that the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought."[13]

The Middle East Quarterly reported in its winter 2004 issue that:

"Kurdish explosives experts also claimed that TNT seized from Ansar al-Islam was produced by Baghdad's military and that arms arrived from areas controlled by Saddam."[14]

According to IraqiNews.com:

"There are also reports stating that Ansar al-Islam received $35,000 from the Mukhabarat branch of Iraqi Intelligence Service, in addition to a considerable quantity of arms."[15]

Reporter Jonathan Miller spent two days with Ansar's leader, Mullah Krekar. In an interview with Insight News Television:

"Krekar denies links with al-Qaeda and says he is Saddam's his sworn enemy. He scoffs at the idea that his trusted friend, the Iraqi Arab Abu Wa'il, is a spy. He denies any links with international terrorism and said he'd never met al-Zarqawi."

Miller also reports:

"We have also acquired video footage filmed inside Ansar territory, showing the Islamists training. Child soldiers feature prominently; Krekar is seen standing beside the man Powell thinks is an Iraqi agent; sharia punishments are administered." [16]

In an interview with al-Hayat, former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi stated:

"Iraqi secret agents helped terrorists enter the country and directed them to the Ansar al-Islam camps in the Halbija area."

Allawi told al-Hayat he based this claim on information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime.[17]

Writing for the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, Sunil Ram states:

"At best, [the links between Ansar al-Islam and Saddam] are tenuous...According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, a top captured Iraqi intelligence officer, Abu Iman al-Baghdadi, has indicated that one of the senior Ansar leaders, Abu Wail, is an Iraqi intelligence officer. If this is true then Saddam and his security services have some influence on Ansar. Al-Baghdadi’s claims are reinforced when one considers the radio chatter between Ansar forces and Iraqi army units heard by the Kurdish military. Furthermore, the leader of the PUK, Barhim Salih, claims that a group affiliated with Ansar is operating from Mosul, a city under Iraqi control at the time of writing."[18]

A "former high-ranking military intelligence officer" told Stephen F. Hayes:

"There is no question about the fact that Ansar al-Islam had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI."[19]

In report published by the Center for Policing Terrorism, it states:

"In August 2002, Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, who has described Ansar as a 'very important' group within the larger framework of bin Laden's World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders stated, '[Ansar] has received limited support from Iraq, and I stress limited.' According to Dr. Gunaratna, Ansar received support from Iraqi agents with the specific intention of infiltrating the anti-PUK group and not to strengthen the Islamist group; Ansar remains an anti-Saddam and an anti-Western group. It should be noted that some commentators would draw a different conclusion with respect to the nature of Ansar’s relationship with Saddam, especially in the period immediately prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom."[20]

[edit] 9/11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report states the following regarding Ansar al-Islam:

“ To protect his own ties with Iraq, [Sudan's Islamist leader] Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Laden apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in a part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.[21] ”

[edit] United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

On September 8, 2006, "Phase II" of the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq was released.[22]

According to the report, the CIA assessed in a June 2002 paper titled Iraq and al-Qa'ida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship that "Reporting shows that unknown numbers of al-Qa'ida associates fleeing Afghanistan since December have used Iraq-including the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, Baghdad, and other regions-as a safehaven and transit area. We lack positive indications that Baghdad is complicit in this activity, but the persistence of an al-Qa'ida presence and the operatives' silence about any harassment from Iraqi authorities may indicate that Baghdad is acquiescent or finds their presence useful." (page 86)

In the January 2003 CIA paper Iraq Support for Terrorism, the CIA assessed "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appears to be overseeing the operations of al-Qa'ida members in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, which includes poisons production, terrorist training, an operational support for terrorist attacks abroad...the al-Qa'ida presence in northeastern Iraq-we estimate about 100 to 200 members and associates in the area-began to increase late last year after the US military campaign began in Afghanistan(page 86)...An influx of al-Qa'ida assistance, operatives, and associates has made Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq-a mountainous no-man's land Baghdad has not controlled since 1991-an increasingly important operational hub for al-Qa'ida.(page 88)"

According to the report "Regarding al-Zarqawi's operations in northeastern Iraq, CIA judged that Baghdad probably had a window into al-Qa'ida activities in Kurdish-controlled Iraq via an individual named Abu Wa'il. Wa'il was identified as an IIS associate by three detainees held by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The CIA noted that it lacked reporting that would help determine whether Wa'il was 'informing Baghdad of al-Qa'ida associated activities; acting as a liaison between Baghdad, Ansar al-Islam and al-Qa'ida, or is Baghdad's point of contact for assisting Ansar al-Islam or al-Qa'ida.'" (page 89)

The report states "The Committee concluded in 2004 that the CIA reasonably assessed that al-Qa'ida or associated operatives were present in 2002 in Baghdad, and in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq." (page 89)

Beginning on page 92 of the report, it states:

“ According to the CIA, a May 2002 IIS document found by U.S. forces in Iraq indicates that the regime, and the IIS, were concerned that the U.S. would use the presence of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq to support claims of links between the regime and al-Qa'ida. This document was authenticated. The IIS Director said that these claims showed the U.S. would continue to fabricate information to prove links between Iraq and Ansar al-Islam, al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. He attached a Christian Science Monitor article from April 2, 2002[23], about Ansar al-Islam to support his concern. In addition, "detainees that originally reported on AI-IIS links have recanted, and another detainee, in September 2003, was deemed to have insufficient access and level of detail to substantiate his claims."

According to the DIA, detainee information and captured document exploitation indicate that the regime [of Saddam Hussein] was aware of Ansar al-Islam and al-Qa'ida presence in northeastern Iraq, but the groups' presence was considered a threat to the regime and the Iraqi government attempted intelligence collection operations against them. The DIA stated that information from senior Ansar al-Islam detainees revealed that the group viewed Saddam's regime as apostate, and denied any relationship with it.

The Intelligence Community did not uncover information suggesting Iraqi regime involvement in the production of poisons or toxins in Kurdish-controlled Iraq prior to the war. Little information has emerged since the war to clarify the extent of the CBW programs conducted by Ansar al-Islam in Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

The DIA reported that the exploitation of the Sargat site revealed the presence of cyanide salts, which seems to confirm suspicions of work on cyanide-based poisons. DIA analysts noted that the findings were not surprising, given Ansar al-Islam's continued efforts to develop chemical weapons capabilities.

 ”

The report concluded that "Postwar information reveals that Baghdad viewed Ansar al-Islam as a threat to the regime and that the IIS attempted to collect intelligence on the group." (page 110)

[edit] Reactions to report

On September 13, 2006, the Kurdish deputy prime minister of Iraq Barham Salih gave a speech at the Brookings Institution. In the speech, he stated "The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told...I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam's regime."[24][25]

[edit] Book: At the Center of the Storm

In April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released his memoir titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. With regard to Ansar al-Islam, Tenet wrote:

"Ansar al-Islam, a radical Kurdish Islamic group, was closely allied to al-Qa'ida. Kurdish Islamists and al-Qa'ida had come together in the summer of 2000 to create a safe haven for al-Qa'ida in an area of northeastern Iraq not under Iraqi government control, in the event Afghanistan was lost as a sanctuary. The area subsequently became a hub for al-Qa'ida operations. We believed that up to two hundred al-Qa'ida fighters began to relocate there in camps after the Afghan campaign began in the fall of 2001. The camps enhanced Zarqawi's reach beyond the Middle East. One of the camps run by AI, known as Kurmal, engaged in production and training in the use of low-level poisons such as cyanide. We had intelligence telling us that Zarqawi's men had tested these poisons on animals and, in at least one case, on one of their own associates. They laughed about how well it worked. Our efforts to track activities emanating from Kurmal resulted in the arrest of nearly one hundred Zarqawi operatives in Western Europe planning to use poisons in operations. What was even more worrisome was that by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They had found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northeastern Iraq...Do we know just how aware Iraqi authorities were of these terrorists' presence either in Baghdad or northeastern Iraq? No, but from an intelligence point of view it would have been difficult to conclude that the Iraqi intelligence service was not aware of their activities. Certainly, we believe that at least one senior AI operative maintained some sort of liaison relationship with the Iraqis. But operational direction and control? No."[26]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The rise and fall of Ansar al-Islam | csmonitor.com
  2. ^ Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan (Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, )
  3. ^ Pam O'Toole. "Mullah denies Iraq al-Qaeda link", BBC News, 31 January, 2003. 
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ Terror strikes blamed on al-Zarqawi in Iraq - Hunt for Al-Qaida - MSNBC.com
  6. ^ Terror strikes blamed on al-Zarqawi in Iraq - Hunt for Al-Qaida - MSNBC.com
  7. ^ Ibid
  8. ^ "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council", February 5, 2003. 
  9. ^ NBC, MSNBC, AP, "No proof links Iraq, al-Qaida, Powell says," MSNBC News Services (8 January 2004).
  10. ^ ABC News: Colin Powell on Iraq, Race, and Hurricane Relief
  11. ^ Sarah Latham. "Saddam 'sends troops to help bin Laden men'", Telegraph.co.uk, 21/04/2002. 
  12. ^ Jim Muir. "'Al-Qaeda' influence grows in Iraq", BBC News, 24 July, 2002. 
  13. ^ JEFFREY GOLDBERG. "THE GREAT TERROR", The New Yorker, March 2002. 
  14. ^ Jonathan Schanzer. "Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq", Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2004. 
  15. ^ "Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam)", IraqiNews.com, 2003. 
  16. ^ Jonathan Miller. "Mullah Krekar Interview", Insight News Television. 
  17. ^ "Saddam Sponsored Birth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq", adnokronos international, May 24, 2005. 
  18. ^ Sunil Ram. "The Enemy of My Enemy: The odd link between Ansar al-Islam, Iraq and Iran", Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, April , 2003. 
  19. ^ Stephen F. Hayes. "Saddam's Terror Training Camps", The Weekly Standard, 01/16/2006. 
  20. ^ "Ansar al-Islam Dossier (PDF)", CENTER FOR POLICING TERRORISM, July 30, 2004. 
  21. ^ "9/11 Commission report page 61 (PDF)". 
  22. ^ "Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq". 
  23. ^ Scott Peterson. "Iraqi funds, training fuel Islamic terror group", The Christian Science Monitor, April 02, 2002. 
  24. ^ "Address to the Statesman’s Forum of The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution (PDF)", Saban Center for Middle East Policy, September 13, 2006. 
  25. ^ ELI LAKE. "Iraqi Official Testifies to Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda", New York Sun, September 14, 2006. 
  26. ^ George Tenet. "At the Center of the Storm: My years at the CIA", HarperCollins, p. 350-351. 

[edit] External links

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