{"id":74309,"date":"2026-04-20T09:49:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/74309\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T09:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:49:29","slug":"al-qaeda-in-iraq-aqi-history-leadership-founder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/74309\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) | History, Leadership, & Founder"},"content":{"rendered":"

al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), militant Sunni<\/a> network, active in Iraq<\/a> after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003<\/a>, comprising<\/a> Iraqi<\/a> and foreign fighters opposed to the U.S. occupation and the Shi\u02bfi<\/a>-dominated Iraqi government.<\/p>\n

Al-Qaeda in Iraq first appeared in 2004, when Ab\u016b Mu\u1e63\u02bfab al-Zarq\u0101w\u012b<\/a>, a Jordanian-born militant already leading insurgent attacks in Iraq, formed an alliance with al-Qaeda<\/a>, pledging his group\u2019s allegiance<\/a> to Osama bin Laden<\/a> in return for bin Laden\u2019s endorsement as the leader of al-Qaeda\u2019s franchise in Iraq. Al-Zarq\u0101w\u012b, who quickly came to be regarded as one of the most destructive militants in Iraq, organized a wave of attacks, often suicide bombings<\/a>, that targeted security forces, government institutions, and Iraqi civilians. Intending to deepen the sectarian component of the Iraq War<\/a>, al-Qaeda in Iraq especially targeted Iraqi Shi\u02bfis, sometimes during religious processions or at Shi\u02bfi mosques and shrines. A 2006 attack widely attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq destroyed the golden dome of Al-\u02bfAskariyyah Mosque in S\u0101marr\u0101\u02be<\/a>, one of Shi\u02bfism\u2019s holiest mosques, amplifying the existing cycle of violent retribution<\/a> and provoking some of the worst sectarian violence of the post-invasion period.<\/p>\n

After al-Zarq\u0101w\u012b was killed by U.S. forces in 2006, Al-Qaeda in Iraq remained active but faced significant local opposition. Many Iraqi Sunnis who had previously participated in the insurgency were alienated by the group\u2019s often brutal treatment of civilians, as well as its efforts to replace local tribal power structures with one imposed by al-Qaeda in Iraq\u2019s foreign components. In an attempt to shed its image as an exogenous imposition, it merged with smaller, more local insurgent organizations and rebranded itself as the \u201cIslamic State of Iraq.\u201d Still, the organization was severely weakened in 2007 after Sunni tribes, aided and rewarded by the United States<\/a>, began to form militias known as \u201cAwakening Councils\u201d to expel the organization from their territories. Although those militias, coupled with an increasingly successful effort by U.S. and Iraqi forces to kill al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders, greatly diminished the organization\u2019s power, the network continued for several years to operate on a reduced scale, targeting Shi\u02bfis, Christians, members of the Awakening Councils, and the Iraqi government.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tQuick Facts<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFormally called:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOrganization of the Base of Jihad in Mesopotamia<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Show\u00a0more)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlso called:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tal-Qaeda in Mesopotamia<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Show\u00a0more)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDate:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2004 – present<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Show\u00a0more)<\/p>\n

In 2013 the group began enjoying a resurgence as Iraqi Sunnis confronted the increasing sectarianism of the country\u2019s predominantly Shi\u02bfi government. Bolstered<\/a> further by the recruitment of militants in Syria, it declared itself the \u201cIslamic State in Iraq and the Levant<\/a>\u201d (ISIL; also called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]) and broke direction with the broader al-Qaeda franchise. In June 2014, after making significant territorial gains in Iraq, the group proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate<\/a> led by the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), militant Sunni network, active in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, comprising Iraqi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[27281,1162,1199,1198,1197,94],"class_list":{"0":"post-74309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-al-qaeda-in-iraq","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-britannica","11":"tag-encyclopeadia","12":"tag-encyclopedia","13":"tag-iraq"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116436412849732348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}