After Zarqawi, no clear path in weary Iraq

By Ellen Knickmeyer

updated 4:46 a.m. ET June 9, 2006

BAGHDAD, June 8 - Analysts and military spokesmen said Thursday that the death of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed Wednesday when two 500-pound bombs obliterated his hideout north of Baghdad, will not extinguish the sectarian conflict that he helped foment and that is now claiming many more lives in Iraq than his campaign of beheadings and bombings.

The slaying of the Jordanian-born guerrilla leader eliminated the biggest advocate of the extreme violence against civilians that has made the Iraq war so grisly. Zarqawi and his radical Sunni Arab group, al-Qaeda in Iraq, carried out suicide attacks that could kill 100 or more passersby in a flash of light and videotaped the last gasps of foreign hostages being decapitated.

More Iraq news

But other crucial questions, analysts say, are thrown completely up into the air: whether other foreign fighters will show themselves equally eager to slaughter civilians, whether the Sunni insurgency will split into fragments or broaden its base and, above all, whether the Shiite-Sunni killing that Zarqawi's attacks helped unleash can be reined in.

"The immediate aftermath of this will probably be an upsurge of violence" as Sunni insurgents hurry to show that Zarqawi's killing has not broken the resistance, said Michael Clarke, an expert on terrorism at the International Policy Institute of King's College London.

"In the medium term, in the next month or two, it will probably help to downgrade sectarianism," Clarke said by telephone. "But the dynamic of sectarian violence is probably past the point of no return."

Attacks on Shiite Muslim civilians and on Iraq's largely Shiite security forces, often carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq, fueled violence between Sunnis and Shiites for three years, although no group asserted responsibility for the attack that pushed the bloodletting to its current high level -- the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Thousands of civilians have died in Baghdad alone since then.

Zarqawi's death "will help, but probably not enough," Clarke said. "If Zarqawi had been killed a year ago, I would be much more positive about the effects of his death than I really can be now."

The U.S. military focused Thursday on the potential impact of Zarqawi's killing on the Sunni insurgency. Without Zarqawi, military officials contended, the insurgency lacks its main fundraiser and figurehead. "He's been really at the forefront in terms of being able to recruit and bring in foreign fighters, so this definitely will disrupt the effort," said one military official familiar with the hunt for Zarqawi.

‘Operational intellect’
"No one behind him had the kind of charisma and operational intellect that he brought to the table," the official said. "Our hope is no one can step in, and you end up with fragmentation and perhaps dissension among his followers."

Critics of the U.S. military's campaign in Iraq have accused American commanders of making their own use of Zarqawi, exaggerating the foreigner's importance to suggest that the insurgency has been thrust upon Iraqi Sunnis more than it has been led by them.

Almost as soon as American officials declared Zarqawi dead on Thursday, they pointed to a foreigner as the man they thought likely to take his place.

Newsweek: How U.S. found al-Zarqawi Items seized from al-Zarqawi hideout Al-Zarqawi tried to flee in last moments From street thug to terror leader   Images: The life of terror leader Cagle's cartoons: Death of Zarqawi! Victim's brother: 'May he rot in hell' Relatives hail 'martyr' for Islam Al-Masri ‘most logical’ successor NBC: Master of the Web war Timeline: Rise and fall of terror chief Vote: Impact of mastermind's death? MORE ON THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, a U.S. military spokesman, identified the man as Abu al-Masri, an Egyptian and a veteran of the Afghan conflicts. Masri appeared to have come to Iraq in 2002, probably helped found the first Baghdad cell of al-Qaeda in Iraq and was involved in bombmaking, Caldwell told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.

"But the key thing that we realize is he's not an Iraqi," Caldwell said. "You know, he's from a different country, he's come into Iraq and he's been out killing innocent Iraqi civilians. He's not the kind of person that the government of Iraq, the Iraqi people themselves nor the coalition forces care to have existing in this country."

But Masri has no public profile. Ordinary Iraqis and international experts said they knew little about the Egyptian put forward by the Americans as Zarqawi's heir apparent. And if U.S. commanders were quick to put a new foreign face on the insurgency, leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq were equally quick to insist that the new face was an Iraqi one.

A statement posted on Web sites and in mosques in the heavily insurgent western city of Ramadi declared that a Baghdad man -- Abdullah ibn Rasheed al-Baghdadi -- was the head of a recently formed umbrella group of Iraqi insurgent organizations that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq.

MORE FROM WORLD NEWS

World news Section Front

Military blocks runway to keep Zelaya away U.S. misread scale of Honduran rift U.S., Russia try to repair frayed relationship Earn our trust or go, Afghans tell GIs Biden: Israel free to set own course on Iran U.N. chief: N. Korea's actions deeply regrettable Iran frees British-Greek reporter Sub hears signal from Yemenia black boxes Poll: Bulgaria’s right wing appears to win vote NYT: Leading clerics defiant on Iran election World news Section Front   Add World news headlines to your news reader: