Sunni Factions Split With Al-Qaeda Group: Good or Bad?

The Washington Post has an article up, Sudarsan Raghavan, describing an interesting development: Sunni factions in Iraq have split with Al Qaeda. The good news: “The split could help isolate a primary foe of the United States in Iraq.”

The bad news: it “could also further splinter the Sunni insurgency and make it even harder to control, according to insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials.”

As long as they are united, you know that you are, at least, dealing with one general enemy / Sunni insurgency.

The cause for the split: “Sunni groups are accusing al-Qaeda in Iraq of killing, kidnapping and torturing dozens of their fighters, clerics and followers. One leading Sunni extremist organization, the Islamic Army, says al-Qaeda has killed more than 30 fighters from different armed factions in recent weeks.”

Funny how they are suddenly opposed to torture, kidnapping and murder. As long as they are the ones doing it (to Shia to be sure), they do not have a problem with it. But when they are targeted themselves, suddenly they cry foul. Sorry, but it is a bit difficult for me to feel badly for them.

Last weekend, the Islamic Army posted on insurgent Web sites a nine-page letter urging bin Laden to stop those killing in his name. “He should rise up for his faith and assume religious and organizational responsibility for al-Qaeda and search for the truth,” the letter said. “It is not enough to disown those actions, but it is imperative to correct the path.”

‘Alaa Makki, a Sunni member of parliament with close ties to the insurgents’ explained: “They have realized that those people are not working for Iraq’s interests. They realized that their operations might destroy Iraq altogether.”

Well, better late than never of course.

The Iraqi Sunni insurgents have had enough: they do not wish to take orders from foreign fighters anymore (who lead Al Qaeda). Some terrorist leaders also said that they do not want to fight against Iraqis, but solely against the U.S. forces (whereas Al Qaeda, of course, is killing just about everyone who is not an Al Qaeda member).

Abu Mohammad al-Salmani, an Islamic Army commander explained: “al-Qaeda has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed within three months. People are tired of the torture. We cannot keep silent anymore.”

Perhaps al-Salmani should consider actually doing something that is in the best interest of Iraq and of Iraq’s Sunni population like, say, creating a united, stable Iraq in which they can raise their children according to their own beliefs, without shooting those who think differently about certain (religious) matters.

Of course Iraqi Sunni insurgents do not worry about Iraq as much, as they do about Sunni Islamic supremacy:

The Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni umbrella organization said to have been created by the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, has said it would kill any Sunni suspected of being an agent of the United States or the Iraqi government, according to Islamic State spokesman Abu Hasnah al-Dulaimi.

“Those armed groups have no choice,” Dulaimi said in a telephone interview from Anbar’s provincial capital, Ramadi. “They have to either join us in forming the Islamic State project in the Sunni areas or hand over their weapons to us before we are forced to act against them forcefully. It will not save them that they have fought the Americans and resisted them in the last few years.”

Khalid Awad, a commander of the Jamiat Brigades meanwhile realized that, perhaps, just perhaps, Al Qaeda is the cause of the war in Afghanistan and, yes, the war in Iraq: “We must confess that if it was not for al-Qaeda, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan would have been occupied. For al-Qaeda has awakened the American ogre against the Islamic nation after the September 11th events, and it is still causing disasters.”

This does not mean that Saddam had close ties with Al Qaeda, it only means that the political climate was such, after 9/11, that Iraq could have been attacked and that many Americans supported Bush’s decision to go to war against Saddam. There is no doubt that without 9/11, there would be no war in Iraq.

That is evil’s problem, isn’t it? In the end, it always turns against itself as well. Evil hates everything… including itself.