Al Qaeda Continues Campaign of Accusations Against Fellow Sunni Insurgents in Iraq by Evan Kohlmann

Al-Qaida Continues Campaign of Accusations Against Fellow Sunni Insurgents in Iraq
By Evan Kohlmann

Over the past two weeks, Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" has continued to escalate its campaign of public accusations blasting fellow Sunni insurgents for "deviating" from the path of legitimate jihad and working directly with U.S. military forces in Iraq. The latest target of Al-Qaida's wrath has been the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood-linked militant group which has issued a frantic flurry of recent statements denying any role in aiding American "occupiers." Yet, according to a statement released by Al-Qaida's Islamic State on September 22, the actual state of affairs is quite a different story:

“The 1920 Revolution Brigades were part of the original resistance against the crusaders and they offered many martyrs and captured prisoners during their battles. Their roots go back to a few individuals from the Association of Muslim Scholars.... However, due to the infiltration of the Iraqi [Islamic] Party into the 1920 Revolution Brigades, they began changing some of their rules. All of this happened after the second round of elections [in December 2005]... Subsequently, the 1920 Revolution Brigades split into two wings: one was ‘Hamas in Iraq’ under the leadership of Mohammed Ayyash al-Kubaisi who was known to oppose the Sunni people and who formed the Association of Muslim Scholars which aimed to mislead the general public and to legitimatize the actions and principles [of Hamas in Iraq]. The second wing kept its original name and is still known as the 1920 Revolution Brigades. Later on, these brigades joined the crusader occupiers in their plan to fight against the mujahideen. Militias that were part of Hamas in Iraq in the Diyala region worked side-by-side with crusader forces and helped them spy on the mujahideen... In contrast, the 1920 Revolution Brigades decided to adopt a more conniving role by publicly denying their assistance to American forces but simultaneously acting in the same manner as their sister brigades from Hamas in Iraq. The 1920 Revolution Brigades established their own militias that fought alongside American forces in the areas of Abu Ghraib, Radwaniyya, and southern Baghdad. They committed despicable crimes, executed foreign fighters, stole women’s jewelry, and broke into homes—all with the approval of their crusader masters... Most of the policemen in Fallujah belong to 1920 Revolution Brigades. The same police have carried out many arbitrary arrests of men attending Salafi mosques... [The 1920 Revolution Brigades have] led continuous media campaigns to defame the jihad of the ISI and in order to alienate it from the general public…”

Click to view English translation of ISI/Al-Qaida communique on the 1920 Revolution Brigades c/o Globalterroralert.com

See also:
- [NEFA Foundation] - English transcript of Sept. 14 speech by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi
- [CT Blog] - "Internal and External Threats to the Jihad Media War"
- [NEFA Foundation] - "State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq: August 2007"
October 1, 2007 01:00 AM Link

http://counterterrorismblog.org/