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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Perhaps the greatest concern
for the U.S. military as it probes this week's
deadly attack on an American base in Mosul is just
how little is known about the group that claims to
have carried it out.
Ansar al-Sunna, often translated as the Defenders of
the Traditions of Mohammad, declared its existence
in an Internet posting in September 2003, and is
thought to have operated mostly in northern and
western Iraq since.
On Tuesday, it claimed responsibility for a suicide
attack on a military mess hall that killed 22
people, including 18 Americans -- the deadliest
attack against U.S. forces since the beginning of
the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
The State Department has described Ansar al-Sunna as
an off-shoot of Ansar al-Islam, a group formed in
late 2001 and based in the mountains of northern
Iraq, near the border of Iran. Ansar al-Islam is
believed to have ties to al Qaeda.
It is not clear why there was a breakaway from Ansar
al-Islam to form Ansar al-Sunna, but operations in
Iraq do suggest that some sort of schism occurred.
Ansar al-Sunna first made headlines when it claimed
responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the
Iraqi city of Arbil in February this year, killing
more than 100 people, mostly Kurdish officials
gathering on a religious holiday.
The attack was the deadliest against the Kurds since
the war; the fact the Kurds were targeted appeared
to draw a link to Ansar al-Islam, a group hunted by
Kurdish militias in the run-up to last year's war.
But it was Ansar al-Sunna that claimed it.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, then the spokesman
for the U.S. military in Iraq, said Ansar al-Sunna
would be put on the U.S. military's hit-list.
"It's coming onto our screen," he said in February.
"We're going to look closely at this group and try
to gather as much intelligence on it as we can on
it."
WAVE OF VIOLENCE
Following the Arbil bombings, which also wounded
more than 130 and employed a similar tactic to this
week's Mosul attack -- a suicide bomber infiltrating
a building and blowing himself up -- the faction
claimed a series of other strikes.
Often the claims were wildly exaggerated and the
announcements appeared designed mainly to attract
publicity.
A propaganda video released in February declared
that the group had carried out more than 280
attacks, killing more than 1,000 people, including
several hundred U.S. soldiers, and destroying 26
U.S. tanks -- tolls almost impossible to credit.
"Many of Ansar al-Sunna's statements appear to be as
much recruiting tools as claims of responsibility,"
Michael Rubin, a scholar with the American
Enterprise Institute, wrote in the Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin earlier this year.
Still, there is no question that the group, which
Rubin believes has attracted recruits from Syria and
Kurdish Iran, has become a force with some power and
no scruples about killing indiscriminately in order
to cause terror.
In August, Sunna put a statement on the Internet
saying it had killed 12 Nepalese hostages. It
released a video showing the beheading of one of
them, a move echoing the killing of hostages by
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of
another group fighting the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
It was not clear where the killings took place, but
analysts think the group has focused activities in
the north, near Mosul.
"Ansar al-Sunna's activities show a well-trained
group able to operate throughout much of northern
and western Iraq," Rubin wrote. "It has taken root
... especially in the area around Mosul."
Since an eruption of violence there on Nov. 11, more
than 200 bodies have been discovered around the
city, many of them executed by a shot to the head.
Ansar al-Sunna is on the short-list of groups
thought to be behind the campaign.
After the mess hall strike, which Ansar al-Sunna
said was a suicide bomber before the U.S. military
confirmed as much, lending credence to its claim,
the group distributed leaflets in city neighborhoods
pledging further attacks.
While relatively unknown, and prone to
Internet-fueled exaggeration, it has put itself at
the heart of the war in Iraq. (Additional reporting
by Mark Trevelyan in Berlin)
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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