Iraqi Forces (and U.S. advisors) Capture Top Dog of Ansar al Islam in Baghdad

The hits keep coming for al Qaeda in Iraq as the top leader of Ansar al Islam insurgent group which is tied to al Qaeda in Iraq has been captured by Iraqi forces in Baghdad. This all comes just a week or so from the day that the #1 and #2 leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq got offed.

Nope, not good times for al Qaeda in Iraq but be prepared for some fireworks in Baghdad the next couple of days as Ansar al Islam peons gnash their teeth and try some revenge out.

The story is from The Long War Journal.

Iraqi forces arrest leader of Ansar al Islam


Iraqi security forces backed by US advisers have captured the head of the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al Islam.

Abu Abdullah al Shafi, the leader of Ansar al Islam, or Partisans of Islam, was detained along with seven "criminal associates" during raids in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Mansour and Adhamiyah on May 3, US Forces Iraq reported in a press release.

Iraq's Interior Ministry confirmed Shafi was detained. "The Criminal Investigation Department arrested the leader of Ansar al Sunnah (another name of Ansar al Islam) armed group, Abu Abdullah al Shafi, and two of his brothers, after receiving intelligence information from the Kurdistan’s security authorities on his presence in Baghdad,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement released to Voices of Iraq.

The capture of Shafi is the latest blow to al Qaeda in Iraq and its allied terror groups. In mid April, Iraqi forces killed Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s political front, during a raid near Tikrit. Iraqi security forces have killed or captured more than a dozen top al Qaeda leaders in Baghdad, Anbar, and Mosul since January 2010 [see full list below].

Shafi is said to have trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and has close ties to Osama bin Laden. Shafi has admitted to carrying out joint operations with al Qaeda in Iraq and the group has been behind large-scale terror attacks in Mosul, Kirkuk, Irbil, and Baghdad. Ansar al Islam has conducted multiple suicide attacks in Iraq and has pioneered the use of female suicide bombers.

Ansar al Islam was formed in 2001 when Shafi merged his Jund al Islam, or Soldiers of Islam, with Mullah Krekar's splinter faction of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. Krekar became the spiritual leader of Ansar al Islam while Shafi was appointed the military commander.

Many of the fighters of Ansar al Islam were veterans of the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan from 1979-1989. Ansar al Islam established a safe haven in northeastern Iraq in the Biyara region along the Iranian border. Ansar al Islam subjected the towns under its control to a Taliban-like rule.

Shafi became the top leader of Ansar al Islam in September 2002 after Krekar was detained while attempting to reenter Iraq from Norway. Krekar was eventually sent back to Norway, where he still resides. The government of Norway will not deport Krekar to Iraq, where he is wanted for terrorism activities, likely due to Iraq's death penalty laws.

While Shafi and Ansar al Islam hold the same radical views as al Qaeda in Iraq, and Shafi is close to al Qaeda Central's senior leadership, he had refused to merge with al Qaeda in Iraq due to problems with the terror group's foreign leadership, several US military intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal. Shafi believed that Iraqis should be leading the insurgency and bristled at how al Qaeda's Iraqi leaders treated local Islamist terror groups. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed in June 2006, was a Jordanian, while Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader until he was killed last month, was an Egyptian.