• published: 30 Dec 2013
• views: 50

US troops and Iranian Al Qods officers join the Iraqi army in a major anti-al-Qaeda offensive, the biggest the Middle East has seen in six years. READ THE FULL DEBKA FILE ARTICLE AT: http://www.debka.com/article/23558/US-and-Iran's-First-Joint-Military-Venture-Fighting-al-Qaeda-in-Iraq Al-Qaeda (/ælˈkaɪdə/ al-ky-də; Arabic: القاعدة‎ al-qāʿidah, Arabic: [ælqɑːʕɪdɐ], translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist and takfiri organization founded by Osama bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan,[15] at some point between August 1988[16] and late 1989,[17] with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan.[18] It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army[19] and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, India and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has carried out many attacks on non-Sunni Muslims,[20] non-Muslims,[21][22] and other targets it considers kafir.[23] Al-Qaeda is Sunni, and often attacked the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence and greater chaos in the country.[127] Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites[128] while claiming responsibility for Shiite mosque bombings.[129] The same month, a statement claiming to be by AQI rejected as "fake" a letter allegedly written by al-Zawahiri, in which he appears to question the insurgents' tactic of indiscriminately attacking Shiites in Iraq.[130] In a December 2007 video, al-Zawahiri defended the Islamic State in Iraq, but distanced himself from the attacks against civilians committed by "hypocrites and traitors existing among the ranks".[131] U.S. and Iraqi officials accused AQI of trying to slide Iraq into a full-scale civil war between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs, with an orchestrated campaign of civilian massacres and a number of provocative attacks against high-profile religious targets.[132] With attacks such as the 2003 Imam Ali Mosque bombing, the 2004 Day of Ashura and Karbala and Najaf bombings, the 2006 first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra, the deadly single-day series of bombings in which at least 215 people were killed in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the second al-Askari bombing in 2007, they provoked Shiite militias to unleash a wave of retaliatory attacks, resulting in death squad-style killings and spiraling further sectarian violence which escalated in 2006 and brought Iraq to the brink of violent anarchy in 2007.[133] In 2008, sectarian bombings blamed on al-Qaeda killed at least 42 people at the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala in March, and at least 51 people at a bus stop in Baghdad in June. War in Syria Following the mass protests that took place in 2011 demanding the resignation of President Bashar Al-Assad, Al-Qaeda affiliated organizations and Sunni sympathizers soon began to constitute the most effective fighting force in the Syrian oppostion.[180] Groups such as the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have recruited many foreign Mujahideen to train and fight in what has gradually become a highly sectarian war.[181][182] Ideologically, the Syrian Civil War has served the interests of Al-Qaeda as it pits a mainly Sunni opposition against a Shia backed Alawite regime. Viewing Shia Islam as heretical, Al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Sunni militant groups have invested heavily in the civil conflict, actively backing and supporting the Syrian Opposition despite its clashes with moderate opposition groups such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA).[183][184] Following Yemeni unification in 1990, Wahhabi networks began moving missionaries into the country in an effort to subvert the capitalist north. Although it is unlikely bin Laden or Saudi al-Qaeda were directly involved, the personal connections they made would be established over the next decade and used in the USS Cole bombing.[242] Concerns grow over Al Qaeda's group in Yemen.[243] In Iraq, al-Qaeda forces loosely associated with the leadership were embedded in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Specializing in suicide operations, they have been a "key driver" of the Sunni insurgency.[244] Although they played a small part in the overall insurgency, between 30% and 42% of all suicide bombings which took place in the early years were claimed by Zarqawi's organization.[245] Reports have indicated that oversights such as the failure to control access to the Qa'qaa munitions factory in Yusufiyah have allowed large quantities of munitions to fall into the hands of al-Qaida.[246]