Who’s Fighting in Iraq?
Following the political vacuum left by the removal of Saddam Hussein, each faction is seeking to maximize its power and influence in the new Iraq, and each group has their own objective. The Sunnis’ objective is to regain some of the power that they had under Saddam Hussein. The most extreme Sunni insurgency groups fight under the name of the Islamic State of Iraq, including al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Shia’s objective is to secure a strong hold on its recently gained political power and to exact revenge on the Sunnis after 1300 years of conflict. The Mahdi army (known as JAM) is one of the largest Shia insurgency groups. The Kurds want to create and protect an autonomous region for the Kurdish people after being persecuted for many years under Saddam. Al-Qaeda in Iraq – Al-Qaeda’s leaders, particularly Osama bin Laden and the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have been outspoken in declaring al-Qaeda’s twin goals as a terrorist organization: 1) the expulsion of foreign forces from Islamic society,
