The Rise Of The Jihadists

The

five insurgents are gathered in a muddy field outside Baghdad, their faces shrouded behind scarves and illuminated only by the light of a full moon. They brandish an assortment of rocket-propelled grenades, mortar tubes, Strella missile launchers and Kalashnikovs — weapons they say they intend to use against American soldiers. The leader of the group, who says his name is Khaled, 31, claims his men conduct "regular" attacks against U.S. forces. Saddam Hussein's capture has done nothing to quell their deadly ambitions, because they are fired not by loyalty to the old regime but by religious zeal. As his charges scan the night skies for U.S. aircraft, Khaled explains that he receives instructions to attack U.S. forces from fundamentalist imams in local mosques, who "take their orders from the Holy Koran." He says, "We are fighting for Iraq and for Islam."

For religiously motivated militants like Khaled, that battle may be heating up. More than a month has passed since U.S. forces unearthed Saddam, but the threats facing American forces in Iraq are no less lethal with him in captivity. According to some U.S. and Iraqi officials, that is in part because of the rising influence and activity of Islamic extremists. These militants are assuming a leadership role in the anti-American insurgency as the ranks of Iraqis loyal to the secular Baathist regime dwindle.

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While the frequency of attacks against U.S. troops has fallen to 17 a day from a high of more than 40 in November, the number of Americans dying in Iraq has remained stuck at about one a day for two months. Three G.I.s were killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad last Saturday, raising the war's U.S. death toll to 500; a suicide bombing on Sunday targeted coalition headquarters in Baghdad, killing two Americans and at least 18 Iraqis. U.S. officials in Iraq fear that assaults are increasingly being directed by jihadists who are leading cells that employ ex-Iraqi soldiers, homegrown Muslim militants and foreign volunteers. An Iraqi with close ties to the resistance says that a group of former Iraqi military officers held two meetings with religious militants last fall that established an alliance aimed at coordinating anti-American attacks. A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad says religiously inspired violence will probably replace attacks by former regime loyalists as "the principal threat we face" as the occupation heads into its second year. Says the official: "It's already starting to shift."

The expanding religious dimension to the insurgency presents fresh challenges for the U.S. as it tries to stamp out the resistance and prepare Iraq for self-rule. U.S. officials have long believed that jihadists threaten the stability of Iraq because of their willingness to commit suicide attacks, even against civilians. Saddam's arrest may have enhanced the appeal of jihadist groups to Iraqis. A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington says jihadist leaders are rallying recruits by telling them that "now that Saddam's gone, the U.S. doesn't have the excuse of being there to eliminate the old regime. Now they're nothing but occupiers."

The jihadists are stirring up those sentiments in the one place that generally remains off limits to the Americans: the mosque. U.S. and Iraqi officials say a worrying number of mosques are providing support for insurgents, whether jihadist, Baathist or both. Early this month U.S. and Iraqi troops raided Ibn Taymiyah mosque in Baghdad, arresting the mosque's imam and 31 suspected militants and uncovering a cache of weaponry. Still, according to a senior military official, U.S. forces in Iraq have conducted relatively few raids inside mosques for fear of offending ordinary Iraqis. Says the official: "You could win the battle and lose the war."

Identifying the jihadists is a devilish task. The U.S. is scrambling to stop the influx of foreign militants, who are nearly impossible to track once they make it into Iraq. "You don't know who they are or who's protecting them," says an Administration official. Compared with the Baathists, he notes, "there's less of an organization"--or it's less detectable. The Iraqi source close to the insurgency says militant groups employ networks of smugglers to take foreign enlistees over the Syrian, Saudi Arabian and Jordanian borders. Afterward the enlistees are ferried through safe houses until they reach a hub city such as Ramadi or Fallujah.

Many of the indigenous jihadists in Iraq practice Salafism, a stringent brand of Sunni Islam that was brutally repressed by Saddam's regime after it began gaining adherents in Iraq a decade ago. A Salafist who claims to be a "manager" of an insurgent cell based near Balad says his group is part of a resistance movement called Mujahedi al-Salafiyah. The man, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Ali, says the Salafists model themselves on the mujahedin who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and on other international jihad movements. He says the Salafists have forged links with their former nemeses in the Fedayeen Saddam militia on the condition that they renounce their allegiance to the former dictator. An Iraqi close to the guerrillas says Salafists have become decision makers in cells as the strength of the Baathists has waned.