Iraq
Ansar al-Sunnah (Followers of the Tradition) is an Iraqi Jihadist group, dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state based on Shari’ah in Iraq, which they aim to achieve by the defeat of coalition forces and foreign occupation. They believe that jihad in Iraq has become obligatory for Muslims. The group’s membership is varied, and is comprised of operatives from the Kurdish terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam, foreign al-Qaeda
operatives, and Iraqi Sunnis.
Targets have included coalition military personnel, members of the Iraqi National Guard, new Iraqi governmental institutions, and Kurdish political establishments, which the group sees as puppet regimes of the American occupation. Ansar al-Islam itself claims to have carried out a total of 285 attacks since May, 2003, killing 1,155 and injuring 160, although many of its claims are unsubstantiated. The group has also threatened to strike US forces with a missile they call the “Khattab-2.” The group is reportedly responsible for the kidnapping of a group of Nepalese contractors, as well as the beheading of an Iraqi military officer, a tape of which was distributed on the internet in November, 2004.
Ansar al-Sunnah has reportedly released a joint statement, along with the banned Arab Socialist Ba’th Party and the group of insurgent Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, in which the groups pledged to “step up and double” their attacks on coalition targets. The statement, written by the Ba’ath party, was in response to the Sharm al-Shaykh conference, which focused on the establishment of general elections in Iraq in January, 2005. Ansar al-Sunnah has also threatened to strike polling centers and candidates in the upcoming Iraqi elections, claiming that elections for a government that will impose man-made laws is considered infidelity.
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