Special Dispatch- Iraq/Jihad & Terrorism 

October 12, 2005 No. 1003 

The Global Islamic Media Front: Al-Qaeda in Iraq Has Replaced the Mother Organization in Afghanistan and is Spreading Jihad Throughout the World 

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD100305  

The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) - an Islamist organization that posts online messages, usually associated with Al-Qaeda, posted on August 29, 2005, on various Islamist forums, a document dealing with the warfare policy of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 (1) The document was signed by someone identifying himself as a Saudi named Abu Abdallah Ahmad Al-'Imran.

(2) The following are excerpts: Al-Zarqawi Has Become Commander of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Perhaps Even in the Entire Middle East and North Africa "The warfare policy of Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq: "After the fall of Afghanistan, the Jihad fighter Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, accompanied by his followers, set out for Kurdistan, where he began to prepare for the war of revenge against the American army that was about to invade Iraq. Commander Al-Zarqawi was a man of determined outlook, and therefore set out directly for Kurdistan, and from there began to prepare bases and arsenals throughout Iraq. Many Saudis went to Iraq in order to join Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, who was well known in Afghanistan. "The American war [in Iraq] began, but Abu Mus'ab did not make an appearance. It is quite possible that this was a deliberate [tactic]: [to wait] until the Iraqi Ba'ath regime fell, in order to make a clean start and to avoid any accusation of having aided the Ba'ath regime headed by Saddam and his men. "After the fall of the Ba'ath party, Al-Zarqawi's organization emerged under its previous name: Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad. Then came the great alliance, which brought us much joy: [Al-Zarqawi] swore an oath of allegiance to Sheikh Al-Islam the Imam and Jihad fighter, Osama bin Laden, and became the commander of Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq, and perhaps in the [entire] Middle East and North Africa. The operations of the Al-Qaeda organization steadily increased and continue to increase, and it now targets well-defined, carefully chosen targets, which are legitimate. "In order to [achieve] these legitimate goals on Iraqi soil, Al-Zarqawi employs three main courses: "The first course - isolating the American army - has two main components: "The first component is targeting Arab translators who are assisting the American forces and who are serving as the mediating link between the army and the Iraqi people. The aim is to prevent any understanding between the American army and the Iraqi people, leaving [the army] 'deaf' and unable to communicate with anyone. This will inevitably make it difficult for American forces in the targeted area to receive a steady flow of intelligence from the field. "The second component is targeting policemen and [members of] the [Iraqi] National Guard,

(3) who have become shields for the American army, which places them at the forefront [of the forces] during the military attacks, so that the bullets will pierce their chests while the Americans remain unharmed. "This is the main component of the operations today. The organization [Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq] has targeted and continues to target these forces, which collaborate [with the occupation]. Moreover, it has reached the stage where it targets Iraqi military bases, in addition to the volunteers who have chosen this world over the next. "Thus, the shield [the National Guard] will shrug off its owner [the American army], and the American chests will become exposed to the bullets of Jihad. The American forces will be forced to withdraw when the fatalities among their soldiers increase. They are, [in fact], numerous [even today], but the American media insists on distorting [the numbers]. "It should be noted that Colin Powell's book, which deals with the mistakes made by the U.S. in the Vietnam War, explicitly states that one of the mistakes was distorting the number of American fatalities, [a measure] that was taken, he says, in order to preserve the morale of the American forces and to avoid an [undesirable] reaction among the American people. "The second course is targeting ambassadors [to Iraq], both Arab and foreign. This reflects the profound political perceptiveness of our organization, which seeks, with these means, to isolate the Iraqi government from the international community and the neighboring countries, so that it will become a government [that exists] only in the media. After [the government] is dissociated from Iraqi soil, and becomes a government of the 'Green Zone' [the fortified area in central Baghdad housing the Iraqi government buildings and the U.S. and U.K. Embassies], it will be dissociated from the rest of the country and [Iraq] will no [longer] be a state in the regular political sense of the word. "This course included the following operations: the killing of the Egyptian and Algerian ambassadors, and the targeting of the Pakistani and Bahraini ambassadors, among other [operations]. "As for the claim that it is forbidden [by Shari'a] to kill the emissaries [i.e., the ambassadors], this is a completely erroneous claim, since the ban on killing emissaries applies to those to whom the emissaries are sent. If Algeria had sent its ambassador to Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq, then it would have been forbidden for the organization to kill him, since he would have been protected [by the ban]. [But] he [i.e. the emissary] was not sent to us... The Jihad fighters in Iraq, who are waging a holy war against the Crusader alliance, have repeatedly warned all countries not to dispatch their ambassadors, since their fate will be death. So they [the fighters] are not to blame... "The third course is targeting the infidel militias and the [prominent leaders] who represent heresy and atheism among the Shiites, the descendants of Ibn Al-'Alqami [i.e., the traitors].

(4) "There is no shame in acknowledging the danger [posed by] the Badr Brigades (Faylaq Badr) [the military wing of the Shiite party - the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI)], which receives full support first of all from Iran, the repulsive Shiite state, and secondly from Syria. "This army receives external support from large countries, so it would be disastrous for the Sunnis to underestimate the threat it represents, or to refrain from seeking to eliminate this force, and eliminate its commanders and its infidel Shiite clerics, such as Muhammad Baqer [Al-Hakim], who was assassinated, and [Ayatollah Ali] Al-Sistani.

(5) "The Islamic world must understand that the Shiites are targeting the Sunni clerics and stealing the Sunni mosques. Moreover, most of the members of the [Iraqi] National Guard and Iraqi army are Shiites - and let's not forget their famous slogan, which they wrote on the walls of Al-Falluja: 'Today your land, tomorrow your honor,' as was reported by the commander of the slaughterers, Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi. "We must clear the scene of all rivals now, before the American forces withdraw, at which point a bitter war will begin against this treacherous army [of] 'the descendants of Al-'Alqami.'" Al-Qaeda in Iraq Has Taken the Place of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and Jihad Will Spread Throughout the World "The targeting of the Badr Brigades aims to accomplish two goals: to avenge the Sunnis and Sunni religious scholars who were harmed by the Shiites, and to destroy this army before the area is free of Americans, so that the path will be clear for the Jihad fighters to take control of Iraq, establish Shari'a courts, suppress innovation and deviation from religious law and custom, and [put an end to] reprehensible actions. "This is the policy of the Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq. All the Arab and Western countries are intervening in the Iraqi war, and want to destroy the Jihad fighters there, since they know that if the Jihad fighters triumph, Jihad will spill out from the boundaries of Sykes-Picot, spread to the Arab countries adjacent to Iraq and to nearby enemies, and then spread to the other Western states [within] a global Jihad campaign.

(6) "That is why everyone has followed the declaration of the Saudi Interior Minister that [Jihad fighters] returning from Iraq would be treated more harshly than those returning from Afghanistan. "Senior [Iraqi] Interior Ministry officials have been discussing a new concept which frightens them: the 'new generation.' 

This refers to members of the Qaedat Al-Jihad who are returning from Iraq [to neighboring Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia]. Even the most junior among them is proficient at [preparing] car bombs and explosive charges, and this is what the entire world fears. "Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq is in fact the re-establishment of another Al-Qaeda organization which spreads Jihad around the world, just like the mother organization did [after] Afghanistan. 

Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi has amazing abilities. He spent over a year preparing for the war against the Americans before the American invasion of Iraq, establishing bases and stores and recruiting supporters - especially in the Najd and Hijaz regions and in Yemen - and these [supporters] then became [his] recruitment agents in these regions. This is in addition to his bases in the Herat region [in Afghanistan], where he gathered around him a group of people from 'Bilad Al-Sham' [an historical term referring to an area including modern Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon], who serve as his official aides. "This is the great Qaedat Al-Jihad in Iraq! "Written by: Abu Abdallah Ahmad Al-'Imran - Najd Region "The Global Islamic Media Front, Indoctrination Department" Endnotes: 

(1) The document was posted, for example, on the Islamist Al-Hesbah message forum: http://www.alhesbah.org/v/showthread.php?t=30977  

(2) Al-'Imran is unfamiliar to MEMRI from previous publications. 

(3) The writer distorts the words al-haras al-watani, which mean "the National Guard," into al-haras al-wathani, which mean "the pagan guard." 

(4) Ibn Al-'Alqami, the Shiite vizier of Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, was accused of opening the gates of Baghdad to the Mongol armies. It should be noted that this is a common slur used by Sunni Muslims against the Iraqi government and its supporters. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 917. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP91705. 

(5) Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer Al-Hakim, a Shiite Iraqi spiritual leader, head of the Higher Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was killed in a large-scale bombing at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf on August 29, 2003. 

(6) The Sykes-Picot agreement was a secret political agreement signed by Britain and France on May 16, 1916, towards the end of World War I, with the aim of defining the control areas of these two superpowers in the countries of the Middle East that were formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire.