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Intercepted documents show al-Qaeda's corrosion in Iraq

By Seth Mandel

October 10, 2008

A routine checkpoint stop in Baghdad has led to the capture and translation of communication between high-ranking al-Qaeda officials, offering a window into the deteriorating state of the Iraqi division of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

In April, Ali Hamid Ardeny al-Essawi was stopped by coalition forces at a checkpoint in Baghdad. Al-Essawi, known as Abu Nizar, pulled a gun and was killed on the spot. Al-Essawy was al-Qaeda in Iraq's (AQI) information minister, and he was carrying a series of letters between the AQI's leadership and al-Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan.

The documents were provided to Bill Roggio, adjunct fellow of the Center for Terrorism Research (CTR) and publisher of the Long War Journal,
www.longwarjournal.org. The documents were then translated in to English by CTR research fellow Tony Badran.

The letters relate to AQI leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. Judge Abu Sulayman al-‘Utaybi, the former head of the legal system of al-Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq, had been critical of Abu Hamza's performance. He alerted al-Qaeda's leadership of the steady weakening of AQI, for which he blamed Abu Hamza's weak leadership. The Islamic State in Iraq is a union of insurgent groups in Iraq formed by al-Qaeda.

The first letter, from an anonymous al-Qaeda leader to Abu Hamza, attempts to reassure Abu Hamza that while the leadership is investigating the complaints, they are not rushing to any judgment, and they implore Abu Hamza to cooperate fully with the inquiry.

"We don't agree or disagree with anything -- there is nothing for us to agree or disagree with to begin with -- rather we are ascertaining," the letter states. "If it comes out that what the brother (Abu Sulayman) mentioned was not true, then we thank God and we would have done our duty in full."

The letter also includes a request from bin Laden that Abu Hamza "gather information on the Halliburton company, as it has moved its headquarters to the United Arab Emirates and its owners must visit it after they exit the White House. So they and their headquarters should be dealt with as necessary while mindful of protecting the neighbors against the damages of the action."

A second letter to Abu Hamza is the first to offer specifics on what the problems with Abu Hamza's leadership might be. The author of the letter implores Abu Hamza to respond with a full report on the condition of AQI, and "and if it is true that there is a setback and a defect and big errors and influential persons inside the [Islamic] State who are corrupt corruptors...."

He then goes into more detail about Abu Sulayman's critique of Abu Hamza. He charges that Abu Hamza foolishly granted amnesty to "criminals" who then participated in the "Awakenings," likely referring to the Anbar Awakening, which is considered a major turning point in the war in Iraq.

Abu Hamza's judgment is consistently denigrated, and his honesty questioned. He is castigated for some of the battles gone wrong, such as one particular one in Ramadi, which was an especially brutal part of Anbar province that was eventually cleared by coalition forces in one of the coalition's more significant victories after the surge. Abu Hamza is accused of pushing his forces into a suicide mission there in a fit of rage.

"[Abu Sulayman] said that ... Abu Hamza, in a moment of anger at the brothers -- because of the sedition of those corrupt influential men -- determined that the brothers descend on Ramadi despite the grave danger," the letter states. "And so they descended and most of them were killed, and some were captured and a few managed to escape, and the operation had no value worth mentioning."

The author of the letters impugns Abu Hamza for isolating himself when he is supposed to be al-Qaeda's leader on its front lines. Because he is "barely seeing or seen by anyone," Abu Hamza is out of touch with "reality". The author tries to quiz Abu Hamza on some basic facts of AQI's campaign, and consistently repeats the need for Abu Hamza's speedy reply.

Abu Hamza is also accused of trying to deceive al-Qaeda leadership into believing that AQI is holding its own, when even the leadership hiding out in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier are aware of the American-led coalition's steady march toward victory over AQI.

The letters indicate that Abu Hamza is avoiding responding to al-Qaeda's leadership, which illustrates the decay of the organization's command structure. It is also implied that Abu Hamza has consistently avoided accurately reporting on how dire the situation in Iraq is for al-Qaeda, since the American-led coalition forces were crushing a once-powerful insurgency under Abu Hamza's leadership.

The final letter in the batch is from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State in Iraq, dated March 6. Zawahiri is considered to be bin Laden's second in command.

In the letter, Zawahiri passes along some suggestions from bin Laden. Among them is to look for "hidden capabilities" among the jihadists in Iraq; to improve the training of members of AQI; and to set up a higher legal council along Sharia guidelines.

Zawahiri ends the letter by returning to the main topic of the letters: the collapse of Abu Hamza's al-Qaeda branch in Iraq. As the American-led forces continued to crush AQI, Abu Hamza has continued to ignore the al-Qaeda leadership's requests for contact. The communication breakdown was so frustrating to al-Qaeda that Zawahiri himself had to write to Iraq's insurgent command leadership on behalf of bin Laden.