A Turning Point?

What is significant about the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of theAl Qaeda in Iraq, is not his death itself, but what contributed to it. Thesuccessful operation, which led to his death, was made possible by animprovement in the flow of intelligence--human (HUMINT) as well as technical (TECHINT)--fromthe agencies of the US and Jordan and possibly Iraq itself.

If the decisive HUMINT had come from a Sunni--as, most probably, it did--thatis the flicker of light in a hitherto dark landscape. The beginning of the flowof actionable intelligence from members of the community to which a terroristleader belongs often marks a turning point in the fight against terrorism. Thesignificance of this watershed should not be under-played due to understandablefears of being proved wrong in one's assessment.

Will this flow gather strength or will it turn out to be a flash in the pan?The answer to this would depend upon the kind of human relationship establishedby the US and Iraqi authorities with the aggrieved Sunni community. If seriousviolations of the human rights of the Sunnis continue to take place and if theUS forces are not able to check effectively the anti-Sunni excesses of the Shia-dominatedgovernment in Baghdad, Zarqawi's death could turn out to be a one-shot successand not a break-through with durable results.

There is still a vast gap in knowledge about the ground situation in Iraq.There has been a multiplicity of terrorist and resistance organisations activein the Sunni majority areas of the country. While one has some knowledge aboutthe Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is the principal foreign terrorist organisation, andthe Ansar-al-Sunnah, which is the principal Iraqi organisation of the pre-SaddamHussein era, one has very little information of the various indigenousresistance and terrorist groups, which came into being after the US-ledoccupation. One knows them mostly by their names and by the kuniyats(assumed names) of their leaders. One does not know definitively how capablethey are, what following they have in their community and what is the inter-organisationalrelationship of these killer set-ups and what is the inter-personal relationshipof their leaders.

There are so many questions without satisfactory answers. Are the suicideterrorists volunteers or recruits? How are they motivated? Who decides on thetargeting? Is there a command and control, which decides on the targeting andselection of persons to carry out assigned tasks? Is there a common command andcontrol embracing all the organisations or does each organisation have its owncommand and control? What was the nature of the command and control exercised byZarqawi over Al Qaeda? To what extent he was personally involved in deciding onpolicies and targets, planning operations and having them carried out?

In the absence of answers to these questions, any assessment of what afterZarqawi will tend to be partly, if not largely, speculative. However, bystudying the circumstantial evidence available, one could reasonably come to thefollowing two conclusions. Firstly, the decisions of a strategic nature weremade by Zarqawi. Examples of such decisions would be the targeting of the Shiacommunity as a whole instead of only the Shia public servants collaborating withthe US as was the policy in the beginning and the regionalisation, if not theglobalisation, of the Iraq-based jihad by expanding its operations to Jordan andpossibly Egypt.

The second conclusion possible is that actions of a tactical nature withinthis over-all strategic framework were decided at the lower levels withZarqawi's role being less important. All organisations involved in the Iraqiviolence--whether indigenous resistance fighters or the Al Qaeda itself--havenaturally sought to project themselves as standing united at this hour ofset-back and as determined to step up the jihad. An attempt has been made toshow their morale as high as ever despite Zarqawi's death.

But, the command and control and the morale cannot but be affected at leastimmediately and in the short term, though they may recover in the medium term ifthe US plays its cards badly. Despite all the doubts raised about the validityof the American assessment regarding the centrality of the role of Zarqawi inkeeping jihadi terrorism alive and active in Iraq, it was obvious that hecommanded considerable loyalty and unquestioning support from the foreignterrorists operating in Iraq. They were prepared to die while executing hiscommands.

He was the most active and widely-felt leader of the anti-US jihad in Iraq.The leaders of the indigenous resistance groups could not achieve the kind ofleadership dominance, which Zarqawi had managed to establish. His death at thehands of the Americans and the Iraqis is bound to create at least a temporaryleadership void. Whoever succeeds him in the Al Qaeda itself may not be able toestablish the kind of dominance which Zarqawi exercised.

This would make it difficult for his successor to bridge effectively thedivide, which had manifested itself between the indigenous resistance fightersand the Al Qaeda because of Zarqawi's actions in indiscriminately attacking theShia community as a whole and in expanding the jihad to Jordan. In retrospect,both these actions have proved to be strategic blunders by Zarqawi. Firstly, hisanti-Shia massacres diluted international criticism of the anti-Sunni excessesof the Government. Secondly, his expansion of the jihad to Jordan made theJordanian Government step up the activities of its intelligence agencies inIraqi territory with the help of tribal elders friendly to the monarchy inJordan. According to an unconfirmed report, the decisive HUMINT which led to thedeath of Zarqawi came from an Iraqi Sunni tribe friendly to the government ofJordan.

This is the time for the US and Iraqi authorities to make gestures to theSunni community in order to widen this divide. If they miss this opportunity andcontinue with their policies which are perceived as anti-Sunni, they would bepresenting the successor to Zarqawi with an opportunity to coax the resistancefighters to forget the past differences due to the wrong policies of Zarqawi andstep up their co-operation with the foreign terrorists.

Such gestures should be in the form of avoidance of serious human rightsviolations in the Sunni areas, action against those responsible for violationsin the past, better treatment for Saddam Hussein and other Baathist leaders nowin detention and facing trial, amnesty for the Baathist leaders and formersoldiers and officers of the Saddam army who have joined the resistanceorganisations and their rehabilitation and the reversal of the policy ofdemonisation of the Baathists. A major problem for the US is going to be inpersuading or pressuring the Shia leaders of the present government to join themin making such gestures. If the US does not succeed, the short window ofopportunity provided by the elimination of Zarqawi is likely to be lost and Iraqwill continue to bleed.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.