The Rise Of The Jihadists

Colonel Kareem Hajem, police chief of Karbala, says investigators believe that Iraqi Salafists carried out the suicide blasts that killed six coalition soldiers and a dozen Iraqi policemen in the city last month. A senior military official says the U.S. is paying more attention to the role of Salafists because of their "long-standing relationship to terrorism in other locations." The official mentions Algeria's violent Salafist Group for Call and Combat.

What remains unclear is whether the jihadists can ever command the popular support required to become a sustainable guerrilla force. Military analysts say that while the jihadists' numbers are growing, the insurgency still doesn't constitute a significant threat to U.S. forces. "We're dealing with onesies and twosies," says retired Army Lieut. Colonel Ralph Peters, referring to the number of insurgents typically involved in each assault. "We're not dealing with waves of Iraqis coming over the walls of our compounds in mass attacks." Khaled, the leader of the jihadist cell outside Baghdad, acknowledges that U.S. forces have killed six of his men and captured 11 more. Yet as he surveys his collection of arms, he sounds like a man confident that time, if nothing else, is on his side. "We are gaining experience every day," he says. "We will have enough weapons to fight for 50 years."