Ansar al-Islam was aninsurgent group active in Iraq and Syria. It was established in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2001 as a Salafist Islamist movement that imposed a strict application of Sharia in villages it controlled around Biyara to the northeast of Halabja, near the Iranian border. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the group became an insurgent group which fought against the American led forces and their Iraqi allies. The group continued to fight the Iraqi Government following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and sent members to Syria to fight the Government following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The group was a designated terrorist organization in the United Nations, Australia, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States, and a known affiliate of the al-Qaeda network. On 29 August 2014, a statement on the behalf of 50 leaders of Ansar al-Islam announced that the group was merging with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, thereby officially dissolving the organization. However, some elements within Ansar al-Islam rejected this merger, and continued to function as an independent organization.
Ideology
Ansar al-Islam was formed in September 2001 from a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdullah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The group later made an allegiance to al-Qaeda and allegedly received direct funds from the terror network.
Organization
Ansar’s first leader until shortly after 11 September 2001 was Abu Abdullah al-Shafi'i.
Mullah Krekar in 2001 replaced Shafi'i as leader of Ansar, Shafi'i became his deputy. After Mullah Krekar left for Norway in 2003, Abu Abdullah al-Shafi'i was again the leader of Ansar al-Islam.
On May 4, 2010 Abu Abdullah al-Shafi'i was captured by US forces in Baghdad. On December 15, 2011 Ansar al-Islam announced a new emir, Sheikh Abu Hashim al Ibrahim. Ansar al-Islam initially comprised approximately 300 men, many of them veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War, and a proportion being neither Kurd nor Arab. During its stay in the Biyara region near the Iranian border, there were allegations of logistical support from "powerful factions in Iran."
Financing:
Ansar al-Islam was formed in September 2001 from a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdullah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The group later made an allegiance to al-Qaeda and allegedly received direct funds from the terror network.
Campaign of violence
Ansar al-Islam detonated a suicide car bomb on March 22, 2003, killing Australian journalist Paul Moran and several others. The group was also thought to have been responsible for a September 9, 2003 attempted bombing of a United States Department of Defense office in Arbil, which killed three people.
On February 1, 2004 suicide bombings hit parallel Eid-celebrations arranged by the two main Kurdish parties, PUK and Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP), in the Kurdish capital of Arbil, killing 109 and wounding more than 200 partygoers. Responsibility for this attack was claimed by the then unknown group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in support of "our brothers in Ansar al-Islam."
In November 2008, an archbishop in Mosul received a threat signed by the "Ansar al-Islam brigades", warning all Christians to leave Iraq or else be killed.
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