al-Qaeda review - al-Qaeda, [...] translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden at some point between August 1988 and late 1989, with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has carried out several attacks on non-Muslims, and other targets it considers kafir.
Al-Qaeda has attacked civilian and military targets in various countries. For example, it carried out the September 11 attacks, 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and the 2002 Bali bombings. The U.S. government responded to the September 11 attacks by launching the War on Terror. With the loss of key leaders, culminating in the death of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's operations have devolved from actions that were controlled from the top-down, to actions by franchise associated groups, to actions of lone wolf operators.
Characteristic techniques employed by al-Qaeda include suicide attacks and simultaneous bombings of different targets. Activities ascribed to it may involve members of the movement, who have taken a pledge of loyalty to Osama bin Laden, or the much more numerous "al-Qaeda-linked" individuals who have undergone training in one of its camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq or Sudan, but who have not taken any pledge. Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from all foreign influences in Muslim countries, and the creation of a new world-wide Islamic caliphate. Among the beliefs ascribed to Al-Qaeda members is the conviction that a Christian–Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam. As Salafist jihadists, they believe that the killing of civilians is religiously sanctioned, and they ignore any aspect of religious scripture which might be interpreted as forbidding the murder of civilians and internecine fighting. Al-Qaeda also opposes man-made laws, and wants to replace them with a strict form of sharia law.
Al-Qaeda is also responsible for instigating sectarian violence among Muslims. Al-Qaeda is intolerant of non-Sunni branches of Islam and denounces them by means of excommunications called "takfir". Al-Qaeda leaders regard liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretics and have attacked their mosques and gatherings. Examples of sectarian attacks include the Yazidi community bombings, the Sadr City bombings, the Ashoura Massacre and the April 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Tariq al-Hashimi found guilty of running death squads .. had to check on the charge .. .. with links ..
Updated: Sept. 10, 2012
Tariq al-Hashimi was a vice president of Iraq, and one of the country’s most prominent Sunni leaders.
In December 2011, a warrant was issued for Mr. Hashimi’s arrest by the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a religious Shiite. The warrant accused Mr. Hashimi of running a personal death squad that had assassinated security officials and government bureaucrats.
The sensational charges against Mr. Hashimi threatened to inflame widening sectarian and political conflicts in Iraq just one day after the last convoy of American troops rolled out of the country into Kuwait.
The accusations were broadcast over Iraqi television, in a half-hour of grainy video confessions from three men identified as Mr. Hashimi’s bodyguards. Under the direction of Mr. Hashimi’s top aides, the men said, they gunned down convoys carrying Shiite officials and planted roadside bombs, then detonated them as their targets drove by. One of the men said Mr. Hashimi had personally handed him an envelope with $3,000 after one of the attacks.
Mr. Hashimi, who had fled to Kurdistan in northern Iraq, denied the charges and blasted Mr. Maliki for using the country’s security forces to persecute political opponents, specifically Sunnis.
In February 2012, a panel of Iraqi judges said that death squads commanded by Mr. Hashimi carried out 150 attacks between 2005 and 2011 against religious pilgrims, security officers and political foes.
In April, Mr. Hashimi fled his refuge in northern Iraq, and has been living in self-imposed exile in Turkey, apparently with the blessing of the Turkish government.
In September, Mr. Hashimi was sentenced to death in absentia, hours after a wave of attacks — including suicide car bombings and militant raids in at least 10 cities — killed more than 50 people across the country.
The next day Mr. Hashimi denounced the verdict as “false and unjust,” depicting the court’s finding as “an acquittal, confirming my innocence.” Other Sunni leaders responded angrily to the court’s action, accusing the Shiite-led government of trying to sideline them from a power-sharing arrangement meant to guard against the sectarian violence that continues to plague the country.
For months before the verdict, lawmakers from the Sunni and Kurdish minorities had accused Mr. Maliki of seeking to monopolize power and sought to force him from office through a vote of no confidence.
A Request for Help From Interpol
In May 2012, the international police organization Interpol responded to a request for help from Iraq to arrest Mr. Hashimi. The note by Interpol, known as a “red notice,” was not an international arrest warrant and stopped well short of requiring Turkey, an Interpol member, to take Mr. Hashimi into custody. But it was likely to increase pressure on Turkey to take action against Mr. Hashimi. At the very least, it could keep Mr. Hashimi in Turkey by making it more difficult for him to cross international borders.
Mr. Hashimi is the highest ranking member of the government from the Iraqiya party, a secular coalition that mobilized Sunnis voters to win 90 seats in the 2011 parliamentary elections. That was the highest total for any party, but its leader, Ayad Allawi, was outmaneuvered by Mr. Maliki, who forged alliances with other Shiite groups that allowed him to hold on to the prime minister’s seat.
Islamist militants strengthen grip on Iraq's Falluja
By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:28am EST
Tribal fighters deploy themselves on the streets of Ramadi January 6, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Ali al-Mashhadani
(Reuters) - Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups have tightened their grip on Falluja, defying the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government's efforts to persuade local tribesmen to expel them from the Sunni Muslim city, residents and officials say.
Despite an army siege, fighters and weapons have been flowing into the city, where U.S. troops fought some of their fiercest battles during their 2003-11 occupation of Iraq .. http://www.reuters.com/places/iraq?lc=int_mb_1001 .
In an embarrassing setback for a state that has around a million men under arms, the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq .. http://www.reuters.com/places/iraq?lc=int_mb_1001 .. and the Levant (ISIL) and its tribal allies overran Falluja and parts of the nearby city Ramadi on January 1.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking a third term in a parliamentary election in April, deployed troops and tanks around the city of 300,000 and funneled weapons to anti-Qaeda tribesmen, but has ruled out a full-scale military assault.
He was quoted by the Washington Post on Thursday as saying that 80 soldiers and police had been killed so far, as well as more than 80 civilians and double that number of insurgents.
Ramadi, the provincial capital of the vast western province of Anbar, is mostly back under state control, but Maliki's calls on local tribesmen to evict the militants from Falluja, just 50 km (31 miles) west of Baghdad, have so far come to nought.
Instead, scores more ISIL fighters have sneaked into the city along with an array of weaponry ranging from small arms and mortars to Grad missiles and anti-aircraft guns, according to security and local officials, residents and tribal leaders.
"Our sources in Falluja indicate that militant numbers have increased to more than 400 in the last few days and that more anti-aircraft guns were received," said a senior local official who declined to be named. His figure could not be confirmed.
The weapons and fighters are reaching Falluja mainly from its southern environs, an area entirely under the sway of tribes hostile to the government, security officials said.
"The tribes scattered around Falluja have zero loyalty to the central government," Sheikh Mohammed al-Bajari, a tribal leader and negotiator in the city, told Reuters by phone.
"Now they (the army) are not controlling anything and no roads can be closed," he said of Falluja's southern approaches.
INTIMIDATING REPUTATION
ISIL, which is also playing an aggressive role in Syria's civil war, is greatly outnumbered by armed tribesmen in Falluja, a symbol of Sunni identity and resistance in Iraq, many of whom lean towards the militants or other insurgent factions.
Since the city fell out of government control, various rebel groups have loosely aligned with ISIL or are asserting their own influence, officials, tribal leaders and residents said.
These include Islamist factions such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Islamic Army, the Mujahedin Army, the Rashidin Army and Ansar al-Sunna, as well as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, a Baathist militia created by Izzat al-Duri, a former lieutenant of Iraq's deposed leader Saddam Hussein.
Despite its limited numbers, ISIL dominates by its zeal and fearsome reputation on and off the battlefield, frequently using suicide bombers in Iraq and in Syria .. http://www.reuters.com/places/syria - where it has even turned them on rival rebel factions in a bitter power struggle.
In Falluja, it distributed leaflets on Thursday announcing a new "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" to enforce its strict Islamic code, residents said.
That recalled memories of the harsh Islamic courts set up in Falluja when the city was dominated by an umbrella group known as the Mujahideen Shura Council from late 2005 to 2006.
Dozens of youths accused of collaborating with the U.S. occupation were executed on the orders of these courts.
A leader of that council, Abdullah al-Janabi, who was also prominent in an ISIL precursor called the Islamic State of Iraq, returned to Falluja two days after its takeover this year.
"Blood is on the hands of all policemen. Police buildings were used to torture and to extract confessions ... and must be cleansed," the Sunni cleric told worshippers at the Saad bin Abi Waqas mosque in northern Falluja on Friday.
"We swear by God almighty and the blood of martyrs that the Safavid army will not enter the city except over our dead bodies," he said, in a derogatory reference to the Iraqi army.
About 200 masked militants using looted police vehicles guarded the road leading to the mosque, where worshippers were checked for weapons before Janabi's sermon at weekly prayers.
Many residents ignored a call from Sunni clerics involved in a year-long anti-government protest movement to gather for mass prayers at al-Furqan mosque in the city center. Instead most worshippers prayed at neighborhood mosques where gunmen were absent.
RESIDENTS FLEE
Many people in Falluja loathe Maliki's government, which they see as oppressive and provocative towards minority Sunnis, but also fear the revival of Islamist militant rule.
Last week Falluja community leaders nominated a new police chief and mayor. The militants responded by blowing up the police chief's house on Tuesday and briefly kidnapping the mayor. Both men have since fled north to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Two days later, they set up checkpoints in several districts and rummaged through people's wallets in search of identity cards that might reveal links with the security forces or government-backed Sahwa (Awakening) Sunni militias.
Fear of ISIL, as well as frequent bombardment by the army, which says it is responding to militant fire, prompted hundreds more families to flee the city in the last few days.
Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Iraq, said more than 14,000 families - at least 80,000 people - had left Falluja and Ramadi since the crisis erupted in late December.
That figure does not include many displaced people not registered by the government or relief agencies, or those who have fled from Falluja since Thursday, she said.
Negotiations for the peaceful removal of ISIL from Falluja are continuing, but have yet to bear fruit.
"We don't expect ISIL fighters to respond positively," said a local official and negotiator, who declined to be named.
"They have come to impose their control on the city...so there is no way to drive them away without fighting."
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