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Analysis: A Morphing al-Qaeda

Council on Foreign Relations

August 20, 2008
Author: Greg Bruno

There’s a consensus in post-Saddam Iraq that after five years of conflict, violence is tapering off. U.S. combat deaths are at their lowest levels in months (AFP), and attacks on Iraqi civilians are on the wane. These "still fragile security gains," as the top U.S. commander in Iraq calls them, are attributable to many factors, including political progress and extra U.S. troops. But among the most celebrated has been the taming of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group is linked to the attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad five years ago (NYT) this summer and many high-profile suicide bombings since then.

To be sure, the group can still be lethal—U.S. military officials blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq for an early August suicide car bombing in Tal Afar that killed dozens (AP). But recent reports that the group's leaders have fled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region—and may be taking new recruits (WashPost) with them—have bolstered a sense that the current peace in Iraq may hold.

At the same time, analysts are now studying how much of an Iraq-to-Afghanistan migration is really taking place. In May, when a former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader turned up dead in Afghanistan, West Point terrorism expert William McCants pondered on his blog, Jihadica.com, whether "this is a sign of things to come." It remains a matter of debate. Earlier this year, in his annual threat assessment, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told lawmakers less than one hundred al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters had moved on to form cells elsewhere (PDF). And according to captured documents (PDF) analyzed by McCants' colleagues at West Point, some departing Iraqi fighters have signed contracts (PDF) vowing "not to join any [al-Qaeda] organization outside of Iraq."

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.