The liberal-minded Kurds have long been warned by Al-Qaeda and its radical affiliates for their firmly forged alliance with foreign forces in Iraq. In recent years, Al-Qaeda launched sophisticated public and media campaigns against the Kurd.
Growing secessionist tendencies among autonomist Kurds has infuriated many Islamists across the Muslim world, waning their sympathy for the Kurds to a degree that some justify Saddam’s brutal behavior of the Kurds. Al-Qaeda persistently encourage Muslim Iraqis and non-Iraqis of all ethnic (Kurds, Arabs) and linguistic backgrounds to cooperate in ousting the Iraqi Government and coalition forces in Iraq.
From Al-Qaeda standpoint, democracies, constitutional governments, and insufficiently Islamic monarchies are equally unacceptable forms of governance for Islamic societies. The emergence of Kurdish Regional Government entity, a state within an Islamic Arab state, is totally incompatible with their ideology.
Al-Qaeda attempted various times to destabilize Kurdistan by using diverse tactics involving: suicide bombings, kidnappings, killings, spreading terror, targeting infrastructure, attacking female students and as forth. Due to the tight security state maintained by Kurdish forces, they failed to achieve their goals in disrupting and disturbing the pervasive order in Kurdistan. They were compelled to provisionally divert their focus from Kurdistan to other penetrable, incontrollable, chaotic parts of Iraq.
Al-Qaeda has characterized the insurgency in Iraq as the central battle in a “Third World War”, which according to Al-Qaeda; the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. The ultimate goal of Al-Qaeda is to establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate in Iraq by working with other allied Islamic extremist groups as well as overthrow other regimes it deems “non-Islamic” across the Muslim world and expel Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries.
Iraq bears unique strategic significance for Al-Qaeda. Iraq has huge oil reserves that are the basis of industry in the global economy. Al-Qaeda wishes to see the war in Iraq spill into Syria and Lebanon, which could give “the Islamic action a vast area of action and maneuvering” and help it to attract “tremendous human and financial resources.” The expansion of violence in the Middle East could also bring the jihadist movement close to “the border of Palestine” and into direct confrontation with Israel, legitimizing the jihadist cause and its supporters.
Al-Qaeda repeatedly attempted to assassinate senior Kurdish officials and stirred up an ethnic war between the Kurds and Arab in order to undermine the current national unity government in Iraq. Last year, its planned to assassinate Iraqi president but the plot was foiled by American forces.
It is a fast adapting organization. It sought to recruit fighters and sympathizers in the rural areas in Kurdistan and inflamed tribal feud among the numerous Kurdish clans. It is widely suspected that it is involved in the abduction of Kurdish journalists, as well.
Although it has failed in all its pervious attempts, it remains vigilant and a strong threatening force. The real Conflict between Al-Qaeda and Kurdish forces will burst into flames following a premature, impromptu drawdown of American forces in Iraq.
By: Thomas Anthony