As the associated TRC Intelligence Report notes, Zarqawi?s death removes a key operational leader and source of rallying inspiration of not only al-Qaeda in Iraq , but also to Zarqawi?s global network that stretches through the Middle East and into Europe. The intelligence operation that led to Zarqawi?s assassination?notably leveraging informants within his organization?and the counterterrorism raids against his network have likely dealt a near-term blow to his operations echelon. These operations, in addition to rolling up, disrupting, and degrading parts of Zarqawi?s network, have likely disrupted associated groups and cells by forcing them to take extraordinary defensive operational security measures such as going underground or fleeing areas of operation and/or breaking existing operational security protocols to make contact with associates?all part of an animation of his network that may better reveal itself to intelligence and military actions. Further, these operations and their widely known use of agents within the network likely also had the effect of straining, sabotaging, and possibly fragmenting group cohesion by stoking internal distrust and paranoia and possibly internal and inter-group conflict, all serving to heighten dysfunction in group operations.
Despite these operations, it is likely that al-Qaeda in Iraq and its network will become more atomized and operationally autonomous without Zarqawi, an organizing Leviathan who sat astride his group?s network, and as cell leaders assert greater control and vie for power and status within the insurgency. Associated groups and cells are likely to carry on the fight with more entrepreneurial attacks. It remains to be seen if the emergent field commanders and Zarqawi?s replacement continue his jihadist strategic and operational legacy of conducting extremely brutal and indiscriminant attacks against the US and Iraqi government targets, foreign personnel, perceived collaborators, and the Shia community all in an effort to undermine the Iraqi government, to conduct a violent jihad against anointed enemies of Islam, and to stoke a sectarian civil war. A dissonance in strategy and tactics between Zarqawi?s jihadists and the more secular, politically moderate, nationalist Sunni insurgency angered the Sunnis and led to clashes between the two and led to a general turning against the foreign jihadists in Sunni areas. Some reports suggested that Zarqawi, likely under pressure from the al Qaeda core leadership, took steps to moderate the scope and nature of his violence to avoid alienating and angering the Sunni insurgents and communities and to maintain operational collaboration and societal support for jihadists.
Successor leaders may learn from Zarqawi?s strategic mistakes and seek to calibrate their attacks and campaigns more finely so as to ingratiate?rather than alienate?their operations to Sunni insurgents. Recent reports suggest that some hardline Sunni rejectionists had joined up with al-Qaeda in Iraq and that Sunni insurgent and societal sentiment was turning against Zarqawi?s jihadists, seemingly underscored by reports that it was Iraqis?likely Sunnis?who served as the critical informants for US special operations forces and whose information proved pivotal in mounting the assassination strike.
In addition to the constituent jihadists groups within Zarqawi?s network likely to press on with attacks, other, more independent jihadist groups and networks in Iraq may take on a greater operational potency and profile. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post recently quoted Nawaf Obaid, director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, as saying that, jihadist groups led by Egyptian, Saudi, and Algerian commanders present a greater military threat than Zarqawi?s network. The strongest, according to Obaid, are north African groups, composed of veterans of the civil war in Algeria .
Of greater concern for the security of Iraq is the building sectarian conflict. On this front, Zarqawi?s network?s attacks against the Shia community may have succeeded in setting in motion a sectarian conflict whose momentum looks by most accounts to be careening toward civil war. Two key indicators?reports of increasingly brazen and deadly targeted sectarian killings and the forced migrations of minority ethno-religious groups?underscore what seems to be a cascading spiral of attacks and low-level ethnic cleansing, pushing Iraq toward civil war.
The critical element of the vigor and entrenchment of the insurgency, and a possible co-catalyst along with Shia militias and jihadists in driving the sectarian conflict, is the overall Sunni insurgent camp. This camp is comprised of four somewhat overlapping sub-camps, beginning with the two, more hardcore elements: Islamist/jihadist fighters and former regime elements?particularly former military and intelligence leaders?seeking a grand ousting of the national government and respectively the establishment of a caliphate or the restoration of Sunni, Baathist rule. The second two sizeable sub-camps of Sunni insurgents are those with Sunni communal, political anti-government motivations and those with nationalist liberation motivations, both seeking the defense and empowerment of the Sunni community and the ouster of foreign control vis-?-vis foreign forces, the Shia-dominated government, and Shia militias. Within the context of the sectarian conflict, jihadists, looking to entice greater Sunni insurgent operational collaboration, have seemingly sought to play up the menace of the Shia government and militias against the Sunnis and the advantageousness of a greater Sunni participation with jihadists in insurgent activities as a means of Sunni communal defense. The Sunni core of the insurgency will likely continue to its fight in at least the near-term.
On this front, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has signaled an interest in inviting moderate Sunni insurgents to national reconciliation talks in July, likely carrying further a long-standing counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to engage and entice politically-motivated insurgents with more moderate, legitimate, and achievable goals into demobilization in return for political negotiations and avenues of empowerment and representation. However, al-Maliki refused to invite the more hardcore elements of the Sunni insurgency?namely, former regime elements?because he considers them to have too much blood on their hands. Though these elements are largely the most powerful within the Sunni insurgency, it is difficult to envision what common ground they and the government might find in negotiating a demobilization compromise that would be mutually palatable. For invited Sunni groups, the recent degradation of the hardcore jihadist elements associated with Zarqawi may have removed an intimidating and obstructionist force that potentially had been sabotaging moderate Sunnis’ entrance into negotiations with the government for fear of jihadist reprisals. Conversely, insurgent groups must perceive viable and advantageous prospects within the al-Maliki government for pursuing and safeguarding Sunni interests and that the government will act to protect the Sunni community from Shia militia menace.
Thus, it is certainly an encouraging development for counterinsurgency efforts and Iraq?s national security that Zarqawi has been removed from the scene, likely along with the disruption of his immediate operational echelon, coupled with a renewed push by the al-Maliki government to entice more moderate Sunni camps of the insurgency into demobilization, all of which chip away at the insurgency. Al-Maliki?s toughest and most important challenges, however, remain to dampen and arrest the spiral of sectarian conflict, to end the roughshod reign of sectarian militias, and to foster true national reconciliation and cohesion between warring sectarian communities.