US tactics swelling Al Qaeda in Iraq

[Richard D]

US tactics swelling Al Qaeda in Iraq: Sunni moderate
(Reuters)

29 October 2006


AMMAN - Sunnis radicalised by brutal US tactics and disillusioned mainstream insurgents are swelling the ranks of Al Qaeda, which believes it can turn part of Iraq into an Islamic emirate, a moderate Sunni politician said on Sunday.

Saleh Mutlaq, whose Iraqi National Dialogue group supports the U.S.-backed political process, said Al Qaeda’s growing control of strongholds at the heart of the country’s Sunni insurgency was paving the way for an Islamic fundamentalist state in western, central Iraq and even the capital Baghdad.

‘In the beginning it was a percentage that did not exceed two to four percent of the total resistance,’ Mutlaq said in an interview in Amman. ‘Now Al Qaeda’s growth is at the expense of the nationalist resistance.’

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