CIVIL WAR WITHIN AN INSURGENCY?From
Memeorandum:
The New York Times has
an article discussing the increasing clashes between Sunni nationalist insurgent groups and the well-funded Islamist terrorist group, al Qaida in Mesopotamia, run by
Musab al-Zarqawi.
While we should not overestimate this, the story is highly plausible given the extremist ideas of Zarqawi which are far more
takfiri-
Kharijite oriented than even the ideology of the main branch of al Qaida run by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. The predominance of Saudis and Saudi money in al Qaida Iraq squares with
the earlier analysis by the
Jamestown Foundation and
a more recent one.
A point which indicates that the Saudi security services are either tasked beyond their means by the magnitude of pro-Jihadi sentiment in the population that their own Wahhabi-Salafist ideology has stoked or very little effort is going to stem the flow of volunteers and cash northward (most likely because, as with the previous exodus to Afghanistan, Saudi authorities are happy to see the troublemakers go. Some won't be coming back).