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Terror Networks
Confession Of ISIS Mufti Shifa Al-Ni'ma: 'I Issued Fatwas Permitting Expulsion Of Christians From Mosul, Enslavement, Selling of Yazidi Women'
2020-01-30
[MEMRI.ORG] On January 22, 2020, Iraq's supreme Judicial Council published a report detailing the confessions of Shifa al-Nima, a senior Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 (ISIS) holy man whose arrest was announced by security forces on January 16, 2020, in which he admitted to issuing multiple fatwas, including those permitting the expulsion of Christians from the city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
 as well as the sale and enslavement of Yazidi women.

According to the report, al-Ni'ma stated that he graduated from al-Madina al-Monawarh University in Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
 in 1984, and went worked as a teacher in al-Rashideen school in Ajman, UAE, for three months before returning to Iraq. He also admitted to taking part in fighting the Iraqi army and establishing armed factions such as al-Mujahideen Army, The Army of Muhammad, and the Islamic Army. The report also says that A-Ni'ma issued multiple fatwas, including those permitting liquidation and bombing operations against Iraqi security forces in Mosul in 2006 and 2007.

Al-Ni'ma also admitted to receiving funds for the mujahideen from a Mosul native residing in London named Abu Mustapha al-Najmawi, and from a Saudi national named Abdallah al-Ghonaiman. The report quotes Ni'ma saying: "In 2007, I travelled to Makkah to perform umrah [a lesser pilgrimage to Makkah undertaken at any time of year] and I met with the terrorist Abu Mustapha al-Najmawi and he is a Mosul native who resided in London... we discussed religious topics and I explained to him the situation in Mosul and the details about the Iraqi forces and their affiliation with the Americans. We talked about the role of jihadi factions and he gave me $6,000 and asked that I spend it on gangs. When I returned to Mosul, I met with members of gangs and I distributed the money between them. In the same year, I went back again to Saudi Arabia to perform hajj and met with al-Najmawi again and he introduced me to the so-called sheikh Abdallah al-Ghonaiman who was a Saudi national who knew about me and my ideology and he gave me $4,000."
Related:
Shifa al-Nima: 2020-01-20 Iraqi counter-terrorism forces arrest high-ranking ISIS official in Fallujah
Shifa al-Nima: 2020-01-18 ISIS leader dubbed ‘Jabba the Jihadi’ captured in Iraq
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Car Bomb Kills 26 in North Syria, Mostly Rebels
2014-01-16
[An Nahar] A boom-mobile in northern Syria killed at least 26 people on Wednesday, most of them rebels, a monitoring group said.

The bomb struck the Aleppo province town of Jarablos, scene of fierce fighting in recent days between the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
, and rival rebels.

Among the dead were three civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse it was likely the incident "was a suicide kaboom staged by ISIL," adding that it came after jihadists lost turf to rival rebels in the town.

Activists in Aleppo province said there had actually been two car kabooms within minutes of each other in Jarablos.

"Two car kabooms struck Jarablos, one near the agriculture school, the other near the prison," said Nazeer al-Khatib, a citizen journalist with grassroots network Shahba Press.

Both sites were being used by rebels fighting ISIL as bases, said Khatib.

Previously under ISIL control, Jarablos has come under a heavy offensive by moderate and Salafist tough guys since Monday night.

It is important because it is located on the Turkish border, with a frontier post.

Since January 3, the Islamic Front, the Syrian Revolutionaries' Front and the Mujahideen Army have waged a fierce offensive against ISIL in several areas of northern Syria.

While local rebels have advanced against ISIL in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, the jihadists have recaptured total control of Raqa province to the east.

On January 6, ISIL commander Abul Baraa warned rebels the group would stage suicide attacks against them should they not cease their offensive.

He was killed earlier Wednesday in a rebel attack in Idlib province.

Once allied with ISIL in the fight to topple Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
, rebels turned against it because of its quest for hegemony over opposition areas and its horrific abuses.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Rebel Alliance Battles al-Qaida-linked Fighters
2014-01-05
[VOA News] An alliance of Islamist and other rebel factions battled fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) across north-western Syria on Saturday in apparently coordinated strikes against the powerful al-Qaeda-linked group.

Activists said dozens of fighters had been killed in the festivities, which started on Friday and may have been provoked by increasing resentment against the radical ISIL fighters, many of them foreign jihadis.

One group of fighters battling the ISIL was the newly formed Mujahideen Army, an alliance of eight brigades who accused the al-Qaeda affiliate of hijacking their struggle to topple Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
.

It said ISIL fighters were "undermining stability and security in liberated areas" through theft, kidnapping and trying to impose their own brand of Islam, and vowed to fight them until ISIL was disbanded or driven out of Syria.

The infighting amongst Assad's opponents has strengthened his hand ahead of planned peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 22. Assad, backed by Shi'ite fighters from Iraq and Leb's Hezbollah militia, has pushed back rebels around Damascus and in central Syria, and faces little pressure to make concessions.

Fighters from the Islamic Front, made up of several Islamist brigades which have been close with ISIL in the past, were engaged in heavy festivities with the group in northern Aleppo province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory, a monitoring group based in Britannia, said at least 60 people had been killed in fighting which it described as a major challenge to ISIL's control in Aleppo and neighboring Idlib province.

The ISIL and another al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, together with Islamist fighters from the Islamic Front, have eclipsed the Free Syrian Army which Western powers had hoped to build into a moderate force capable of toppling Assad.

That impotence was highlighted in November when the FSA's military command lost control of a military base and main weapons depot close to the Turkish border.

Battling Qaeda 'oppression'

Assad's main political opponents in exile, the National Coalition, sought to portray Saturday's festivities as a counter assault by the FSA against ISIL's "authoritarian oppression"

"The Syrian people clearly have rejected al-Qaeda's attempts to establish a presence in the liberated territories," coalition member Monzer Akbik said. "The solution to fighting extremism in Syria is to strengthen the Free Syrian Army at this critical juncture".

The coalition said the fighting erupted after ISIL gunnies fired into a crowd of civilians in the Aleppo village of Kafr Takharim who were commemorating the death in ISIL custody of a prominent Syrian doctor and rebel commander, Hussein Suleiman.

Suleiman's body was handed over by ISIL on Tuesday as part of a prisoner swap between rival rebel forces. Video footage of his corpse showed signs of beating and one ear was cut off.

Several demonstrations were held across Aleppo to mark Suleiman's death on Friday. Some brought together several hundred protesters, a dim echo of the many thousands who erupted into the streets for anti-Assad protests in the early months of the uprising, before it turned into armed insurgency and civil war.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in nearly three years of conflict. More than two million refugees have fled abroad and another 6.5 million are internally displaced within the country of 23 million, the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
 says.

The war pits Sunni rebels against forces loyal to Assad, from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and has divided the Middle East along sectarian lines, with Sunni states such as Turkey and the Gulf monarchies backing the rebels, and Shi'ite Iran and Hezbollah supporting Assad.

Western reluctance to intervene militarily in the conflict - in contrast to the rapid NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
 involvement in Libya in 2011 - has been heightened by concerns about the growth of al-Qaeda-linked Sunni Moslem groups in rebel areas of north and eastern Syria.

Their spread inside Syria has been matched across the border in western Iraq, where ISIL has tightened its grip in the Sunni Moslem province of Anbar.
Link


Iraq
Iraq insurgent groups form one council
2007-10-12
The groups forming the council include the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Mujahideen Army, Ansar al-Sunna, the Fatiheen Army, the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (Jami) and the Islamic Movement of Hamas-Iraq.
Six main Iraqi insurgent groups announced the formation of a "political council" aimed at "liberating" Iraq from U.S. occupation in a video aired Thursday on Al-Jazeera television.

The council appeared to be a new attempt to assert the leadership of the groups, which have moved to distance themselves from another coalition of insurgent factions led by al-Qaida in Iraq.

In the video aired on Al-Jazeera, a man identified as the council's spokesman — wearing traditional Iraqi garb, with his face blacked out — announced the council's formation and a "political program to liberate Iraq." He said the program was based on two principles.

"First, the occupation is an oppression and aggression, rejected by Islamic Sharia law and tradition. Resistance™ of occupation is a right guaranteed by all religions and laws," he said. "Second, the armed Resistance™ ... is the Legitimate™ representative of Iraq. It is the one that bears responsibility for the leadership of the people to achieve its legitimate hope."

The groups forming the council include the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Mujahideen Army, Ansar al-Sunna, the Fatiheen Army, the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (Jami) and the Islamic Movement of Hamas-Iraq.

The step could be a bid by the insurgents for a more cohesive political voice at a time of considerable rearrangement among Sunni insurgent groups and Iraq's Sunni Arab minority. Splinter factions of two insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Mujahideen Army, have cooperated with U.S. forces in fighting insurgents allied to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Earlier this year, other groups — the Islamic Army of Iraq, the main faction of the Mujahideen Army, a branch of Ansar al-Sunna and the Fatiheen Army — formed a coalition called the Jihad and Reform Front opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq, though they have continued attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Link


Iraq
Red on Red
2007-05-14
Newly formed insurgent group accuses al-Qaida of killing 12 of its senior members

CAIRO, Egypt: A newly formed Islamic militant group accused al-Qaida of killing 12 of its senior members in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood in a statement posted Monday on its Web site. The Peoples Front of Judaea Jihad and Reform Front described Saturday's killings as a "catastrophe that befell on us" and urged the Judaean Peoples Front al-Qaida to hand over the culprits to be tried by its Islamic court, the posting said.

The group was formed by merging the Popular Front for the Liberation of Judaea Islamic Army in Iraq, the Judaean Popular Front Mujahideen Army and some senior leaders from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Judaea Sharia Commission of Ansar al-Sunnah, according to the Front's founding notice, posted two weeks ago. But leaflets recently plastered on walls in the western city of Fallujah said the Most Popular Front for the Liberation of Judaea, Really, and Don't You Believe those Other Heretics 1920 Revolution Brigades had joined the Front as well.

"Twelve of our mujahideen, mostly field commanders from the Judaean Popular Front Mujahideen Army, were killed in a perfidious ambush set up by some of our past comrades whom we did not expect to betray us in such a cruel and barbaric way," the Front said in Monday's statement. According to the group, its emergence angered "those who work in darkness and who try to bury the newborn (Front) using the most savage means of hostilities and betrayal."

"We consider the al-Qaida organization fully responsible for this heinous crime and call upon them to adopt the true religious stand by handing over ... the criminal killers to the religious court of the Jihad and Reform Front," the statement said.

In its founding notice, the Front implied it was against al-Qaida extremist ideology and indiscriminate attacks on Shiite Muslims or other civilians. "The mujahideen's (Front's) military actions target the occupier and the agents and not innocent civilians . . . to endeavor to gain the confidence of the Muslims in general," it said.
Isn't that special.
The formation of the new group indicates the deepening rift between al-Qaida and Sunni guerrilla groups and tribes, especially in the Anbar area. These Sunnis are turning against al-Qaida because of its sheer brutality and austere religious extremism. Some militants have been negotiating with the government to join the political process.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Judaea Islamic Army of Iraq, which has said it opposes al-Qaida's claim to establishing the Islamic state, accused al-Qaida last month of killing 30 of its members. The Most Popular Front for the Liberation of Judaea, Really 1920 Revolution Brigades accused al-Qaida in March of assassinating one of its leaders, Reg Harith Dhaher al-Dhari.

The rift prompted Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of al-Qaida's umbrella group, Amalgamated Fronts for the Popular Liberation of Judaea the Islamic State of Iraq, to appeal to all militants in an audiotape last month to please don't kill me stop spilling each others' blood and unite against the Americans and the government.
Link


Iraq
3 Iraqi rebel groups form coalition
2007-05-04
Three insurgent groups said on Thursday they had formed a coalition that aimed to expel US-led forces from Iraq and appeared to distance itself from Al Qaeda-linked organisations in the country. The Islamic Army in Iraq, the Mujahideen Army and Ansar al-Sunna, an offshoot of the established Ansar al-Sunna group, said they would avoid spilling civilian blood, according to an Internet statement.

“The Jihad and Reform Front ... pledges to continue with the duty of jihad in Iraq until all objectives, including the complete withdrawal of the occupiers in all their guises and the establishment of God’s religion .... are met,” it said. “The military actions of the mujahideen will target the occupiers and their collaborators and will not target the innocents whom jihad aims to lead to victory.” Fighters had a duty to plan their attacks well and consider their consequences, it said.

The authenticity of the statement could not be verified. It was posted on websites used by militant groups. “The mujahideen are the protectors of the religion and its people and one of their priorities is to protect Muslim blood, money and honour and to reduce the burden on residential areas,” it said.
Link


Olde Tyme Religion
Mujahideen Army threatens Pope with suicide attack
2006-09-17
As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen's Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad.
Okay. Think about the logic of that.
On a website used by rebel movements in Iraq, a message posted by the Mujahideen Army said members of the organization would "smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome."
Because he said Islam is too fond of violence?
European religious and political leaders have backed the Pope in the wake of the Muslim protests over his academic lecture at Regensburg University Tuesday, saying the pope's words had been misinterpreted. "Rather than criticizing Islam, the pope is actually offering it a helping hand by suggesting that it do away with the cycle of violence," Fr. Samir K. Samir, SJ one of the Vatican's leading experts on Islam wrote in the Catholic newspaper Asia News.
I'm not sure brandishing a zipgun and showing your colors will help terribly much in getting away from the reputation of being the juvenile delinquent of religions...
The pope's academic lecture "was trying to show how Western society-including the Church-has become secularized by removing from the concept of Reason its spiritual dimension and origins which are in God," Fr. Samir stated.
To the extent that reason probably came into being as the ground monkeys attempted to comprehend the world God had made them. I guess I can accept that.
While European Muslims were quick to attack the pope's words, the continent's political leaders declined to follow. "Whoever criticizes the pope misunderstood the aim of his speech," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with the German newspaper, Bild.
That's one European leader. Has the count gone up since last night?
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she said on Friday. Benedict "expressly spoke in favor of this dialogue, which is something I also support and consider urgent and necessary."
"Dialogue" to the Muslim world consists of us saying we're sorry and them telling us whether the apology had enough grovel in it.
"What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion," Merkel noted.
In response to which we have threats of suicide boomings, attacks on churches, and calls from Muslim clergy for the Pope to be killed. Y'see where I'm trying to find the sense, here...
This is a "storm in a tea cup" the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey told The Jerusalem Post. "Anything Pope Benedict says should be weighed carefully. He is not given to slight or idle remarks," he added, dismissing Muslim charges the Pope had "rubbished" Islam. "If he quoted something said 600 years ago, we should not assume that this represents the Pope's beliefs about Islam today," he said.
Yeah, Lord. Gotcha. I'm sure that reconciliation stuff's working just fine. It couldn't possibly be that the Learned Elders of Islam are just looking for each and every excuse to demand more and more apologies from the West, the bigger the figure the better, thereby putting the West collectively more and more on the defensive...
Lord Carey, who chairs the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East has long been active in Christian-Muslim dialogue, and in 2002 signed an accord in Alexandria with the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel calling for an end to violence, suicide bombings and a resumption of the peace process in the Middle East.
That worked well, didn't it? The past four years have been... ummm... well...
"Muslims, as well as Christians, must learn to enter into dialogue without crying 'foul'," Lord Carey said. "We live in perilous times, and we must not only separate religion from violence but also not give religious legitimacy to violence in any shape or form."

Italian European parliament vice president Mario Mauro condemned as "monstrous" the manipulation of the pope's remarks by Islamic leaders which he claimed were used to "hit out at Christians and the West." The controversy was evidence of the "gravity of the danger we are facing" he told the ANSA press agency on September 15, and urged Europeans to "defend reason" against the onslaught of "Islamist-Nazi ideology that permeates fundamentalist thought."

The Western press was divided over the pope's remarks. The New York Times editorialized on Saturday that the pope must give a "deep and persuasive" apology for his remarks as "the world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
Link


Iraq
Head of Mujahideen army in Mosul arrested Thursday
2006-08-25
(KUNA) -- Iraqi law and order forces on Thursday arrested the head of the Mujahideen army in Mosul, the head of the police information center in the city, Brigadier Said Al-Jabburi said. He said the arrested man was called Abdel-Rahman Ali, also known as Abdel-Rahman Al-Ofari, who was the "leader of the Mujahideen Army in the city of Mosul."
Let's hope he was tripped a couple of dozen times on the way in to the stationhouse...
Link


Iraq
Iraqi mujahideen army releases online strategy
2006-05-23
A statement dated May 18, 2006, from the Mujahideen Army [Jeish al-Mujahideen] in Iraq describes the “Resistance Strategy Facing the Controlling Strategy,” which concerns a plan to effect Muslim victory over the aims of the “big Crusader/Zionist colonial project”. The group begins by recommending that people must be allocated to the fields to which they are specialized, and preachers are to impress upon Muslims the “high standards” of Islam and solve any doctrinal problems that may arise. These, and a “complete resistance” involving a comprehensive, international movement with Iraq as the locus and patience, are means to stop the encroachment of the enemy in Islamic community structure culturally, socially, and economically.

The Mujahideen Army advocates continued attacks upon economic targets, harming America’s ability to import oil, and affecting the state culturally, by exploiting their “big international mistakes” and uncovering additional instances of prisoner abuse. They state that these changes will only be wrought by the faithful Muslims: “Really it’s a good chance to realize the hope which hangs on the horizon - it is true and not dreams - that the end of the American offense will be by the hands of the believers, as the Soviet offense was ended.” To this end the group entreats Muslims to place greater trust in Allah and His ability to weaken the enemy forces, as it allegedly happened in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and to look upon the mujahideen favorably, reversing the damaged caused by the “Crusaders”.

In summation of the strategy’s goal, the statement indicates: “The chance is ready now for the Muslims to form a new global order starting from the Iraqi land which Crusaders want to start their project to change the Muslims and the world to be herds of slaves in the global crusaders Zionists empire within the American empire project.”
Link


Terror Networks
Al-Qaeda releases propaganda video in Turkic
2006-05-23
A series of four video clips as part of a one hour and fifteen minute compilation of jihad in Turkistan was recently distributed amongst jihadist forums. Some segments bear the logo of as-Sahab, an al-Qaeda multimedia producer, and others feature clips from attacks executed by the Islamic Army in Iraq and Mujahideen Army, depicting commonness amongst the mujahideen groups’ operations. Islamic nasheeds play over opening scenes of mujahideen carrying weapons and backpacks through a mountainous region, then distributing armaments amongst members and performing training exercises involving the hurling of grenades and firing guns and mortars. Images of smoke rising from the World Trade Center towers are then followed by footage of mujahideen in a forest area preparing for an operation, the camera panning on a vehicle being fired upon as shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are shouted.

Myriad shots of destroyed Humvees and enemy forces observing the damage and engaged in battle are also shown. Following is what seems to be a segment from a documentary on guns and explosives used in wars, subtitled in English, over which Turkic language is watermarked.

Additional scenes of martyrs and lengthy speeches by three masked mujahideen conclude the compilation.
Link


Iraq
More on Zarqawi being phased out
2006-04-03
Iraq's resistance has replaced Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as political head of the rebels, confining him to a military role, the son of Osama bin Laden's mentor said Sunday in Jordan. "The Iraqi resistance's high command asked Zarqawi to give up his political role and replaced him with an Iraqi, because of several mistakes he made," said Hudayf Azzam, who claims close contacts with the rebels.

"Zarqawi's role has been limited to military action," said Azzam, whose late father Abdullah Azzam was bin Laden's mentor. "Zarqawi bowed to the orders two weeks ago and was replaced by Iraqi national Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi," Azzam said.

Azzam, 35, whose father was known as the "prince of mujahideen," said he regularly receives "credible information on the resistance in Iraq." He said Zarqawi "made many political mistakes," including "the creation of an independent organization, Al-Qaeda in Iraq." "Zarqawi also took the liberty of speaking in the name of the Iraqi people and resistance, a role which belongs only to the Iraqis," Azzam said.

As a result "the resistance command inside and outside Iraq, including imams, criticized him and after long discussions demanded that he be confined to military action," Azzam said. "Zarqawi pledged not to carry out any more attacks against Iraq's neighbors after having been criticized for these operations which are considered a violation of sharia [Islamic law]," Azzam said.
I'm guessing that's in reference to the Jordanian boomings.
Nevertheless, the Amman-based Azzam insisted that Zarqawi remains a strong force on the ground. "He is stronger than before on the battlefield and the resistance has profited from his military experience," he said. "Five organizations have rallied around Zarqawi: the Mujahideen Army, Ansar al-Islam [also known as Ansar al-Sunna], the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Iraq, Al-Tawid Wal Hujra and Revolution 20 Brigades," he said. The joint U.S.-Iraqi operation launched in mid-March around Samarra, north of Baghdad, aimed at "dismantling these five groups," Azzam said.

General John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said at the time that the offensive targeted Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups in Samarra. "Generally it's linked to the notion that in that vicinity where they're operating that there are some hard Al-Qaeda in Iraq nodes and some hard insurgent nodes that need to be dealt with," Abizaid said.

Azzam also expected "several mistakes made in the past, such as some hostage-taking, not to occur again." Asked about the wave of abductions in Iraq targeting journalists, Azzam said: "Not all journalists are innocent." "The resistance is against the occupiers. It is a natural and legitimate right," he said.

Azzam said that last week's liberation of U.S. hostage Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor journalist who was held in Iraq for 12 weeks, allowed the release from jail of "wives and sisters of resistance brothers." "When the American Army cannot succeed in arresting resistance members, they arrest their wives or other members of their family," Azzam said.
Link


Iraq
More Red-on-Red in Ramadi
2006-01-24
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi nationalist rebels in the Sunni Arab city of Ramadi have turned against their former al Qaeda allies after a bomb attack this month killed 80 people, sparking tit-for-tat assassinations. Residents told Reuters on Monday at least three prominent figures on both sides were among those killed after local insurgent groups formed an alliance against al Qaeda, blaming it for massacring police recruits in Ramadi on January 5.

"There was a meeting right after the bombings," one Ramadi resident familiar with the events said. "Tribal leaders and political figures gathered to form the Anbar Revolutionaries to fight al Qaeda in Anbar and force them to leave the province. "Since then there has been all-out war between them," said the resident in the capital of the sprawling western desert province of Anbar, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals.

Local Iraqi officials confirmed residents' accounts of events but declined to comment publicly.
Not quite knowing on which side their bread is buttered.
The bloodshed is the latest example of a trend U.S. military commanders and diplomats have been pointing to optimistically in recent months as a sign that some militants may be ready to pursue negotiable demands through the new Sunni Arab engagement in parliament after taking part in last month's election.

On Thursday, three local Islamist groups around Ramadi -- the 1920 Brigades, the Mujahideen Army and the Islamic Movement for Iraq's Mujahideen -- also met to distance themselves from their fellow Islamists in Qaeda, joining the shift against al Qaeda led by more secular, tribal and nationalist groups.
"I mean, we know we're a little crazy, but dem boyz is nuts!"
The pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper quoted a statement from six Iraqi armed groups on Monday announcing they had united to form the "People's Cell" to confront Zarqawi and preserve security in the Anbar province. The statement condemned "armed operations which target innocents" and affirmed "a halt to cooperation with al Qaeda."

Both sides have distributed leaflets in the city of half a million claiming killings of opponents."Qaeda announces the killing of someone in the Revolutionaries and then the others announce they have killed someone in Qaeda," the resident said.
Perhaps you guys should have a 2-for-1 sale?
Another resident following events closely said: "The conflict is now clear between the militant groups and al Qaeda; the Anbar Revolutionaries who were formed after the attacks say they want to eliminate al Qaeda from Anbar."
Link



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