In Iraq, al Qa'eda militants are down but far from out

The withdrawal of US troops is being challenged as al Qa'eda extremists thought to be on the ropes prove to be more resilient than had been anticipated.

Al Qa'eda has been weakened as its leadership is detained or killed, but is still a threat to Iraq's stability. Above, emergency response teams control the site of a car bombing on Friday in Tuz KhormShow more

BAGHDAD // At the beginning of the month, the US military authorities revealed they had detained or killed the majority of al Qa'eda's leadership chain in Iraq. Highlighting improvements in security, Washington said it was successfully on course to reducing troop levels to 50,000 and ending combat operations by the end of August.

Eight days later, in the heavily defended heart of Baghdad, militants offered their response, staging a daylight raid on the central bank. Armed with bombs and assault rifles, they stormed the fortified bank compound and battled with Iraqi security forces for more than an hour. US helicopters buzzed overhead, cutting through the smoke clouds as the battle unfolded. At least 15 people were killed, not including the assailants, some of whom are believed to have escaped by blending in with fleeing bank staff. According to Iraq's minister for national security, there had been 15 attackers wearing military uniforms, among them seven suicide bombers.

That brazen, well-organised offensive of June 13 overshadowed the opening of Iraq's parliament - finally sitting three months after national elections - and underlined the precarious situation still facing the country and its fledgling democracy. Senior members of the US-allied Sahwa tribal movement say a confluence of events, including such insurgents raids and the US pull-back little more than two months away have started alarm bells ringing.

"There needs to be a rethinking of plans by the Americans following the new fighting with al Qa'eda," said Sardiq al Jabouri, the sheikh heading the Sahwa, or Awakening, movement in the Baya'a neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital. "Al Qa'eda has a new sharpness, a new focus. They have adapted their methods and practices and they are still managing to hit their targets. No one can even say today that Baghdad is fully under government control."

Mr al Jabouri said the Islamist militants had suffered setbacks, including arrests and difficulties with financing, but that they were also proving their resilience. In addition, he warned that political developments might be swinging to favour radical extremists. "Al Qa'eda is actively trying to recruit Sahwa leaders over to their side again, especially those who are having problems with the Americans or the Iraqi government," he said. "This is an extremely dangerous development."

The Sahwa Councils were formed by Sunni tribes, who had previously made common cause with Islamist extremists against the Iraqi government and US forces, before switching sides in 2006. From that moment, well funded by the United States, the Sahwa forces routed al Qa'eda in Iraq, playing a key role in ending a sectarian civil war and bringing about a semblance of stability to the country. But the alliance between the Sunni tribes and the Shiite-dominated government has always been an uneasy one, with the Sahwa increasingly seeing themselves marginalised by the authorities, rather than integrated into the security forces and given the jobs and recognition they had been promised.

That sense of marginalisation was only heightened when some 9,800 tribal fighters in Diyala were denied permission to carry weapons this month. Diyala has seen some of Iraq's worst sectarian violence, and Sunni militants are still active there. Sahwa leaders have long cautioned that, if tribes are impoverished and left without a stake in the new Iraq, they may slip back under the influence of extremists.

In the elections on March 7, Iraq's Sunnis overwhelmingly supported the secular candidate Ayad Allawi for prime minister. Although his Iraqiyya bloc won a narrow victory it did not secure a governing majority. Instead, the opportunity to rule the country looks likely to fall once again to a Shiite bloc, the National Alliance, joining the current prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, with sectarian groups such as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Sadr movement.

The Sadrists in particular have a strong position in the National Alliance, one that has raised the spectre of a return of its feared Mahdi Army militia. After a series of al Qa'eda bombings devastated Shiite areas in Baghdad this year, the Mahdi Army - albeit unarmed - appeared on the streets of the capital once again. "Some people [among the Sunni tribes] are now saying the government is in the hands of the Shiites and Iran again, and the Mahdi Army is coming back again, our way of reconciliation has not worked," Mr al Jabouri cautioned. "These things could give a motive for the Sunni to change their direction again, and to stop fighting against al Qa'eda."

In the district of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, a former ally to Islamist militants fighting the Iraqi government said al Qa'eda viewed the current situation as an opportunity. "They are biding their time in the fight for Iraq," said Amer Burhgani, a Sahwa leader whose tribe had been with the insurgents before switching sides. "My information is that they have money problems but they are rebuilding and they are finding ways of getting new foreign fighters in."

On Wednesday a Sahwa leader was killed in a bombing in Abu Ghraib, attributed to al Qa'eda. Two days later a series of attacks in Mosul, al Qaim, Baqubah and Baghdad claimed 30 lives, with 100 more injured. The al Qaim incident saw seven Iraqi soldiers on patrol near the Syrian border ambushed and killed. "There is talk now among the Americans and the government that al Qa'eda is very weak, but they are showing their are prepared to stay here and fight," Mr Burhgani said. He also warned against assuming that the sectarianism that tore the country apart between 2005 and 2007 had faded sufficiently that it was no longer a threat.

"It is not sensible to claim victory before you have won," he said. "The government is dismantling the Sahwa without realising that it still needs the Sahwa's support." Abdul Rahman al Tikriti, an independent Iraqi analyst specialising in al Qa'eda, said the network remained, "clever, organised and powerful". Although arrests of senior al Qa'eda figures had been made, he said, many others continued to elude capture and are staging successful operations.

"You used to know who and where the extremists were by the way they dressed and acted. Now the boy in the [US rap musician] 50 Cent T-shirt may be with al Qa'eda." Mr al Tikriti said the Islamist militants' key goal was to ensure that US forces could not easily withdraw from Iraq. "Al Qa'eda wants the Americans to stay, it wants to tie them up in a war and drain their resources and energy slowly, over the coming years. That is their aim and they might be clever enough to achieve it."