BAGHDAD — He’s like a ghost from the nightmare world of Saddam Hussein. Izzat Ibrahim al Douri was for decades one of the Iraqi tyrant’s blood-covered right-hand men and—this is what’s important now—Saddam’s liaison with radical jihadists the world over. If Saddam and Osama bin Laden never had a meeting of the minds, it wasn’t because al Douri didn’t try.
Today, still surviving despite numerous reported health problems, and still on the loose despite a promised $10 million reward for his capture, the 72-year-old al Douri is allied with the so-called Caliph Ibrahim who has led the conquest of much of Syria and Iraq.
Formerly known by the acronym ISIS, and now called the Islamic State, the group’s campaign includes beheading, crucifying, and executing its enemies en masse while throwing down the toilet the trillion-plus dollars the United States spent trying to create a stable democracy in Iraq.
As the incompetent government and cowardly army officers of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki lose more territory by the day, Washington indulges in what is, for the short term, wishful thinking about the potential divisions in the ranks of the jihadist storm troopers, with al Douri supposedly at the center of the discord. His followers claim to be Sufi Muslims and many of them come from Saddam’s old Ba’ath Party. Ibrahim’s Sunni fanatics claim to hate Sufis and they destroy their shrines, while the Ba’ath used to be militantly secular—even anti-religious.
But “used to be” is the operative phrase here. Yes, there are tensions. Sometimes there are shootouts. But the fundamental goal of the caliphate alliance—to slaughter Shia, roll back Iran’s presence in Iraq, and humiliate Washington in the process—is very dear to all those associated with it.
BY: Jacob Siegel reported from Baghdad. Christopher Dickey, who attended the Baghdad jihadist conference in 1993, reported from Paris.
Categories: Arab World, Asia, Iraq
It would be nice to find more articles written by Iraqi and other Arab nationals on this issue, rather than by writers who were part of the occupation (and destruction) of Iraq.