Internet key tool for fighters
2006-02-15 20:59
London - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda
in Iraq is among four main groups leading an insurgency against
US-led and Iraqi forces that owes its resilience partly to
canny exploitation of the internet, a report said on Wednesday.
The International Crisis Group, a non-profit organisation
that monitors conflicts, analysed insurgent publications and
internet postings to argue that the rebel groups had steadily
developed sophisticated communications and coherent leadership.
Zarqawi's militant group, viewed by the United States as its
deadliest foe in Iraq but whose importance others dispute,
"appears to be surprisingly well-structured", the ICG report
said, citing a study of its communiques.
"It should neither be blown up into a Leviathan nor ignored
as a mirage, but rather considered as one among a handful of
particularly powerful groups," the report concluded.
'Well-organised'
The report named Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq
and the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance as the other main
groups broadly sharing a Sunni Islamist and nationalist agenda.
These large armed groups or networks are "well organised,
produce regular publications, react rapidly to political
developments and appear surprisingly centralised", it said.
They were less divided between Iraqi nationalists and
foreign fighters than often assumed and remained relentlessly
hostile to the United States and its Iraqi "collaborators",
despite efforts to draw them into the political process.
Increasingly confident of victory, the rebels have shown
themselves sensitive to Sunni Arab opinion and willing to alter
their tactics - such as beheading hostages and attacking voters
- to avoid alienating support, the report said.
Political pressure
US counter-insurgency tactics aimed at killing enemy
fighters, eliminating their leaders and driving them from their
strongholds do not appear to be working, it argued.
Insurgent groups, including Zarqawi's, had replenished their
ranks and their leaders, while exploiting Sunni Arab hostility
to the US-led occupation and to the Shi'ite Islamist parties
that now dominate Iraq's elected government.
The report said the insurgents were arguably more
susceptible to political than military pressure, citing last
year's elections, televised confessions of captured fighters and
accusations of sectarianism and brutality.
Any successful counter-insurgency effort would seek to erode
the perceived legitimacy of the rebels and would require US
and Iraqi forces to avoid prisoner abuse and the use of
sectarian militias against their Sunni Arab opponents, it said.