This caught my eye too: "The Islamic Army is a Salafist group that includes former officers from now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's army. It first appeared in 2004 and has kidnapped foreigners and carried out grisly beheadings."
AFP: ' Iraqi police have arrested a Sunni anti-Qaeda militia leader and his aide over three car bombings outside the shrine city of Karbala that killed 45 people, a top general said on Friday.
The two men, who were not identified, were arrested overnight in the village of Al-Hamiyah in Babil province south of Baghdad.
They are suspected of direct involvement in three car bombings, one of them by a suicide attacker, against Shiite Muslim pilgrims on their way to Karbala on Thursday.
"We arrested a Sahwa commander in Al-Hamiyah along with his aide," said Major General Nohman Dakhil, the commander of police rapid response forces across the country.
The Sahwa (Awakening) are a collection of Sunni tribal militias who turned against Al-Qaeda and began siding with the US military from late 2006, turning the tide of the insurgency that threatened to engulf Iraq.
The Sahwa leader "works for the Islamic Army, and was directly involved in the Karbala attack," Dakhil added, noting that his forces would arrest another "target" later on Friday.
The Islamic Army is a Salafist group that includes former officers from now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's army. It first appeared in 2004 and has kidnapped foreigners and carried out grisly beheadings.
Describing the militia leader arrested on Friday, Dakhil said: "He is a criminal -- he had one foot in terrorism, and one foot in the state." '
2 comments :
Jaysh al islami is not really quote-unquote salafist.
They turned their back on what was called Al Qaeda in Iraq at the time, and they joined the United States.
That was an extremely disappointing move from a group which was known for Juba the Sniper and other such brands.
But, they have only destroyed their own reputation, because the Islamic State Will Remain (Daulat al-islam Baaqiya), while the Islamic Army's new umbrella group has done nothing at all.
"Operationally, I went wrong by trying to understand the network of the non-Al-Qaeda actors as having their origins in the Saddam regime, as former officers, security officials and Ba’athists. What I missed was that there was a supra-network of young Salafists and other assortment of young Sunni Islamists who came to age during the 1990s—many of whom spent time in Saddam’s prisons and who all know each other—whose alumnae went on to become Al-Qaeda, the Islamic Army, the Ansar al-Sunna, the Army of the Mujaheddin and the 1920 Revolt Brigades. This supra-network led the insurgency, and recruited the ex-regime officers and Ba’athists as sub-contractors of the jihad; the Saddamists worked for the Salafists from the very beginning, not the other way around."
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