Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Diego Union-Tribune
October 12, 2007 By Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt – Six Iraqi insurgent groups announced the formation of a council aimed at liberating Iraq from U.S. occupation in a video aired yesterday on Al-Jazeera television.
The council appeared to be an attempt to assert the leadership of the groups, which have moved to distance themselves from another coalition of insurgent factions led by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In the video aired on Al-Jazeera, a man identified as the council's spokesman – wearing traditional Iraqi garb, with his face blacked out – announced the council's formation and a “political program to liberate Iraq.”
He said the program was based on two principles.
“First, the occupation is an oppression and aggression, rejected by Islamic Shariah law and tradition,” he said. “Second, the armed resistance ... is the legitimate representative of Iraq.”
The groups forming the council are the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Mujahedeen Army, Ansar al-Sunnah, the Fatiheen Army, the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance and the Islamic Movement of Hamas-Iraq.
The step could be a bid by the insurgents for a more cohesive political voice at a time of considerable rearrangement among Sunni insurgent groups and Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.
Splinter factions of two insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Mujahedeen Army, have cooperated with U.S. forces in fighting insurgents allied to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Other groups formed a coalition this year opposed to al-Qaeda in Iraq while continuing attacks on U.S. forces.
October 12, 2007 By Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt – Six Iraqi insurgent groups announced the formation of a council aimed at liberating Iraq from U.S. occupation in a video aired yesterday on Al-Jazeera television.
The council appeared to be an attempt to assert the leadership of the groups, which have moved to distance themselves from another coalition of insurgent factions led by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In the video aired on Al-Jazeera, a man identified as the council's spokesman – wearing traditional Iraqi garb, with his face blacked out – announced the council's formation and a “political program to liberate Iraq.”
He said the program was based on two principles.
“First, the occupation is an oppression and aggression, rejected by Islamic Shariah law and tradition,” he said. “Second, the armed resistance ... is the legitimate representative of Iraq.”
The groups forming the council are the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Mujahedeen Army, Ansar al-Sunnah, the Fatiheen Army, the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance and the Islamic Movement of Hamas-Iraq.
The step could be a bid by the insurgents for a more cohesive political voice at a time of considerable rearrangement among Sunni insurgent groups and Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.
Splinter factions of two insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Mujahedeen Army, have cooperated with U.S. forces in fighting insurgents allied to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Other groups formed a coalition this year opposed to al-Qaeda in Iraq while continuing attacks on U.S. forces.