Insurgents vs. al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda may be overstaying its welcome in Iraq. A powerful Sunni insurgent group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, has posted an open letter on an affiliated website demanding that none other than Osama bin Laden intervene to bring his Iraq-based followers “in line.” Al-Qaeda, which is primarily a non-Iraqi Sunni group, had long teamed up with Iraqi Sunni insurgents. But tensions between the two camps escalated in the fall, when al-Qaeda created a new jihadi supergroup called the Islamic State of Iraq to unite the disparate cells fighting the U.S. and Shi’ite militias. Al-Qaeda demanded that all insurgent groups swear loyalty to the new organization, but some of the most active Iraqi nationalist networks, like the Islamic Army, refused. According to the Islamic Army’s letter, al-Qaeda “went too far” and retaliated “by killing 30 mujahedin brothers.”

Though more tribal violence seems an odd solution for war-torn Iraq, the U.S. is hopeful that Iraqis will finally rise up against al-Qaeda outsiders. In Anbar province, a U.S.-backed council of Sunni sheiks has made it its mission to force al-Qaeda out of the area. On April 6, the council announced it had killed four al-Qaeda operatives. “Our work,” read a statement from the sheik heading the council, “continues until we finish them all.”