Word: al-zarqawi
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...Sunni insurgent leaders say it was their insistence on voting in the October referendum that discouraged al-Zarqawi from disrupting the poll. For now, the nationalists say they will be voting again on Dec. 15, and they expect al-Qaeda to once more hold its fire. But so far no announcements have been made, and nationalist commanders are worried that al-Zarqawi may decide to go for broke this time. "The debate is being had," says Abu Baqr, the Baghdad insurgent commander. "But soon the orders have to be given...
That's why U.S. officials in Iraq are reaching out to the Sunnis, the insurgents and former Baath Party members as part of a program to quell the violence by peeling them away from al-Zarqawi. "The fault line between al-Qaeda and the nationalists seems to have increased," says Ambassador Khalilzad. Here's an inside look at how those splits have started to emerge, how they are redefining the shape of the insurgency in Iraq--and why the U.S. is now turning to some of its old enemies...
...insurgency at large. They took over local militias' checkpoints and neighborhoods, even "arresting" leading Sunni insurgent figures. When the local clerical body, the Association of Muslim Scholars, refused to endorse his suicide bombings and beheadings of Western hostages, al-Zarqawi branded the association's leader, Harith al-Dhari, a coward. "In Fallujah [al-Zarqawi's] leaders were foreigners who'd come to be martyred," says Abu Marwan. "What did they care about the political process? Nothing...
...Though al-Zarqawi's shadow still looms over the broader insurgency, the battle of Fallujah last November forced him to give his organization an Iraqi face. "Among the foreign fighters some dispersed, some were killed, some were captured," says Abu Marwan. And over the past year, U.S. operations against al-Zarqawi's organization have chipped away at its leadership structure and squeezed its sanctuaries. As a result, Iraqis who joined as low-level cell members have risen up the leadership chain. Abu Marwan says al-Zarqawi's aides told him their boss's three top lieutenants are all Iraqis. Another...
...noncriminal Baathists." Evidence of shifts within the insurgency in some ways presents the U.S. with its best opportunity since the occupation began to counter parts of the Sunni resistance. Adopting the long-standing attitudes of secular Baathists, some Sunni leaders tell TIME they have lost patience with al-Zarqawi and would consider cutting a political deal with the U.S. to isolate the jihadis. "If the Americans evidenced good intent and a timetable for withdrawal we feel is genuine, we will stand up against al-Zarqawi," says Abdul Salam al-Qubaisi, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars. "We already stood...