By Fredrik Dahl
Reuters, 09 June 2006
BAGHDAD - The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al Qaeda in Iraq, may boost other groups drawing support from the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority, including Saddam Hussein loyalists with more nationalistic aims.
While equally opposed to the U.S. occupation and Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, their tactics are believed to be different from those of Zarqawi, who was notorious for beheading captives and killing hundreds of people in suicide bombings.
"The other insurgent groups ... may become more powerful and benefit from the weakness of al Qaeda," said Professor Hazim al-Nuaimy of Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.
Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, who had a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, was killed in an American air strike on Wednesday night in a village north of Baghdad.
Sunni Arab militants loyal to Zarqawi were blamed for major bombings against Shi'ite targets in Iraq which sought to draw the majority Shi'ite community into a sectarian civil war.
"Zarqawi's death may change the methods of the insurgents," Nuaimy added, predicting less attacks against civilians. "It may not be as brutal ... these other groups focus more on targeting U.S forces."
U.S. and Iraqi officials hope that relatively moderate elements in the insurgency may eventually be lured into the U.S.-backed political process, pointing to Sunni participation in a unity government formed last month.
New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after he took office last month at the helm of a grand coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds that his government would offer dialogue to insurgents who lay down weapons.
But the no-nonsense Shi'ite Islamist has rejected any role for militants with "Iraqi blood on their hands", including followers of Zarqawi, who had declared war on majority Shi'ites.
Maliki may soften his position, however, if leaders of other guerrilla groups show flexibility.
CONSTITUTION
The most powerful insurgents are former officers in Saddam's army and intelligence network, people with years of military experience who had formed alliances of convenience with al Qaeda but were alienated by Zarqawi's brutal methods.
Al Qaeda militants from across the Arab world make up only about five percent of the insurgency, U.S. officials say, but their spectacular suicide bombings kill the most people.
"If they (the U.S. military) succeed in eradicating al Qaeda in Iraq it would strengthen the main strand of the insurgency, which is nationalist in orientation," said Joost Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group think tank.
But, he cautioned, if that strategy failed, Zarqawi's followers could re-emerge as a strong threat.
A recent ICG report described al Qaeda as one among a handful of "particularly powerful groups" in the uprising that erupted after U.S. forces invaded to overthrow Saddam in 2003.
It is fuelled in part by perceived grievances among Sunnis, who make up roughly 20 percent of Iraq's 26 million population, that they are being marginalised in post-Saddam Iraq.
Key to defusing the violence would be to revise a new constitution, which Sunnis fear will deprive them of oil revenue from Shi'ite and Kurd-dominated areas, Hiltermann said.
The community's integration into Iraq's armed forces was another crucial factor. "These are very difficult requirements to meet," he said.
BAGHDAD BOMBS
Iraqi and U.S. officials hailed Zarqawi's death but cautioned that it did not spell an end to the militant and sectarian killings that have pushed Iraq towards civil war.
As a reminder of this, a series of bombs killed at least 31 people and wounded nearly 70 others across Baghdad on Thursday, the day Maliki announced the news on live television.
"The Iraqi insurgency is a very loose organisation and I don't see how the decapitation of it will have such a great impact," said Nadim Shehadi, associate fellow of Chatham House's Middle East Programme in London.
But will the main insurgent groups perhaps embark on a different path now that the man behind the most gruesome and savage attacks has been removed from the picture?
"The strategy of the resistance will be the same but the tactics will change with an expected reduction of violence against civilians," said Nuaimy.
Additional reporting by Michael Georgy and Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad
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Citation: Fredrik Dahl. "Zarqawi death may strengthen rival rebel groups," Reuters, 09 June 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEO939301.htm
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