Ansar al Islam

Ansar al Islam (in English, Partisans of Islam) is a Sunni insurgent group of Kurdish origin operating primarily in northern Iraq, especially the governorates of Sulaymaniyah and Ninawa. Ansar al Islam holds to a Salafist worldview, which insists on a puritanical form of Islam and seeks to emulate the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. It aims to create an Islamic state in Iraq through a violent jihad against the Iraqi government and its institutions. Ansar al Islam has deployed violence against mainstream secular Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Ansar al Islam was founded in December 2001 by Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad (better known as Mullah Krekar), who as of 2010 was residing in Norway as a refugee. His goal was to challenge the grip of traditional Kurdish leaders over Kurdistan. In 2010 the group's leader was Abu Abdullah al Shafi'i (real name Wirya Salih), a Kurdish Iraqi veteran of jihad in Afghanistan and Chechnya. In addition to targeting its Kurdish adversaries, Ansar al Islam has regularly claimed responsibility for attacks against coalition forces in Iraq, the Iraqi government and its security personnel, Shiite militias, and anyone it accused of cooperating with these groups. Along with al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al Islam has regularly deployed suicide bombers and is known to behead its captives.

Prior to its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States accused Saddam Hussein, then president of Iraq, of willingly harboring Ansar al Islam and other terrorists, but these charges have largely not been proven. Following the invasion, Ansar al Islam was decimated by a combined U.S. aerial bombardment campaign and a ground attack led by Kurdish militias, known as the Peshmerga, loyal to the KDP and PUK. In September 2003, surviving members of the group reorganized under the name of Ansar al Sunna Army, which later changed its name to Ansar al Sunna Group. Then, on November 28, 2007, Abu Abdullah al Shafi'i announced that his group would return to the name Ansar al Islam. In all likelihood, this “rebranding” was intended to differentiate his men from another group that split from his ranks a few months earlier and adopted the name of Ansar al Sunna. The return to the original title was also intended to highlight Ansar al Islam's history of jihad in Iraq, which predates the invasion of the country and the rise of competing insurgent factions.

Ansar al Islam was the first organization to host foreign jihadists seeking a haven in Iraq, chief among them Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the founder of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). While both AQI and Ansar al Islam share a similar worldview, serious tensions between the two groups emerged in 2007 due to charges that AQI had killed some members of Ansar al Islam.

Ansar al Islam has regularly produced online magazines and videos highlighting its ideology and celebrating its insurgent attacks. These online productions feature suicide bombings, killings of Iraqi police and military personnel, attacks against mainstream Kurdish parties and forces, and the execution of Shiites accused on being anti-Sunni militia members.

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