'Spectacular attacks' in Iraq expected

The U.S. sees a group it links to Al Qaeda as the main threat. A Mideast expert, however, says that role is exaggerated.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Times Staff Writer LATIMES

July 12, 2007

BAGHDAD — U.S. military leaders said Wednesday that they expect the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq to respond to the American troop buildup by lashing out with "spectacular attacks" designed to aggravate sectarian tensions.

With military officials set to submit a preliminary progress report on Iraq to Congress in the coming days, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Al Qaeda in Iraq, which U.S. officials say is linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, is the main threat to U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

Bergner deemed the group "the main accelerant in sectarian violence" despite its small size and what U.S. officials say is a mostly foreign membership.

The renewed focus on foreign Al Qaeda in Iraq operatives comes a week after Bergner laid out U.S. contentions that Iran has tapped Hezbollah militants in Lebanon to train insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.

It may foreshadow efforts by military leaders to argue that the conflict in Iraq is fueled by foreign intervention, which they have reduced in areas such as the western province of Al Anbar, rather than homegrown militias and sectarian unrest.

The U.S. military has focused this summer on offensives to unseat Al Qaeda in Iraq and affiliated groups from Baghdad and surrounding cities and to win over local Sunni Muslim groups.

Bergner said U.S. troops also were staging operations in cities such as Mosul to the north and Ramadi to the west to prevent displaced Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters from resurfacing.

He said U.S. forces had killed or captured 26 Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders during May and June.

At an afternoon news conference in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, Bergner said U.S. forces were better able to attack Al Qaeda in Iraq because of the additional 28,500 troops ordered into the country this year by President Bush, new alliances with Sunni groups opposing Al Qaeda in Iraq such as the Diyala Support Council, and increased support from Iraqi citizens.

Bergner said 60 to 80 foreign fighters arrive in Iraq each month, the vast majority through Syria, and they are enlisted by Al Qaeda in Iraq for 80% to 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq.

"Their numbers are relatively small, but their effect is very, very devastating to the Iraqi people because they are employed frequently as these suicide bombers," he said.

He acknowledged that Shiite militias and insurgent groups also are destabilizing the country but said the military remained focused on Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Bergner said foreign "facilitators" form a link between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Bin Laden's network, recruiting and smuggling equipment and fighters into Iraq. Facilitators included Khalid Turki, a militant whom U.S. forces killed last month.

Bergner said Turki fought U.S. forces in Afghanistan and was an associate of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Al Qaeda senior leadership does provide direction to Al Qaeda in Iraq, they do establish focus, they do establish and provide resourcing and support the network," Bergner said. "There is a higher-level direction and higher-level leadership between the two, clearly."

The argument that there is a direct connection between the strife in Iraq and those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks comes as Americans' support for the war is waning on the eve of the preliminary progress report to Congress by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American troops in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Petraeus and other military leaders are expected to focus on U.S. troops' success in turning local Iraqi leaders against Al Qaeda in Iraq and to downplay the worsening sectarian tensions in Baghdad and the spread of Shiite militias outside the capital.

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who specializes in counter-terrorism in the Middle East, said the U.S. military was exaggerating Al Qaeda in Iraq's role.

"They are very important as the cutting edge of the Sunni insurgency but are only a small minority within it," he said. "And much violence today comes from Shiite militias which Al Qaeda opposes. Al Qaeda in Iraq is responsible for many large attacks but not the many roadside bombs or murders that kill every day."

The military reported the death of a U.S. soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday from a cause unrelated to combat, bringing to 3,610 the total American troop deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to icasualties.org, which tracks military casualties in Iraq.

Meanwhile, a key Iraqi minister responsible for drafting the latest version of the country's new oil law, seen by U.S. officials as a key benchmark for progress here, said the new measure was too vague and would allow leaders in oil-rich areas, particularly the Kurdish north, to sign contracts with international oil companies without the national government's approval.

"This will be a disaster for the country," said Planning Minister Ali Baban, a member of the main Sunni political bloc.

But Sami Askari, a Shiite member of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's political bloc, said the law would still require contracts to be reviewed by a central government council made up of members from various regions.

"Any contract which does not pass through this process will be void," Askari said, dismissing the planning minister's dire predictions.

Also in Baghdad, a German kidnapped from her home Feb. 6 was freed Tuesday, according to an announcement Wednesday by the German Foreign Ministry.

Hannelore Marianne Krause, 61, is married to an Iraqi physician and has lived in Iraq for decades. She and her son Sinan were kidnapped from Baghdad by militants who demanded the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan.

Both are German citizens, said a spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin.

Hannelore Krause pleaded for her son's release on Arabic-language television Wednesday, demanding that the German government leave Afghanistan.

"If they will not respond to this demand, my son will be slaughtered," she said.