BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida remains a threat to Iraqi national security despite a shift in its operations to Afghanistan in response to the U.S. troop surge and Sunni forces.
The Sunni-led Awakening Movement in 2005 and the subsequent increase in U.S. military troops helped force many al-Qaida fighters out of western Anbar province. Later operations targeting al-Qaida members in restive Diyala province further diminished the central structure of the group in Iraq, though that should not suggest the group is in decline, the Iraqi satellite television network al-Sumaria reported Wednesday.
The report suggested loyalists to former dictator Saddam Hussein quietly brought foreign fighters, including al-Qaida, into the country to fight U.S. forces and the group is still active in smuggling operations along the Syrian border.
For their part, U.S. commanders told Pentagon officials in August that, although al-Qaida is responsible for 3 percent of the attacks in Iraq, they can claim 65 percent of the casualties.
Meanwhile, the leader of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, posted an audio message on a militant Web site promising a reward "to anyone who kills one of the Islamic Party leaders -- a member of Parliament or provincial council or a province official," Radio New Zealand said Wednesday.
The militant Islamic group, which has ties to al-Qaida, listed Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni general secretary of the Islamic Party, and fellow lawmaker Abdul Kareem al-Samarrai'i as marked for assassination.
