Al Qaeda in Iraq rises again

LA Times

Reporting from Jarf Sakhr, Iraq —

Sheik Sabah Janabi wears a painful-looking metal brace on his left hand, its rods pressing into the puffy flesh like the spring on a mousetrap. He fumbles a Marlboro from a pack with his good hand, sucks in the smoke and frowns.

In this farming town that was a center of extremism when Iraq fell into its nihilistic civil war, Janabi sits in a darkened room, his white shirt half tucked in and his blue tie slightly askew. He talks about how gunmen tried to kill him three months ago and describes himself as a leader under siege.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is back from the dead.

Once vanquished by Janabi and other Sunni Arab fighters who joined the U.S.-backed Awakening movement, the Islamic militant group is carving out new sanctuaries here in the farmlands south of Baghdad, in the deserts to the west and in the mountains to the east.

Almost weekly, suicide bombers wage war in the Iraqi capital. Tribal leaders, local officials and some U.S. officers worry that Al Qaeda in Iraq has successfully exploited the country's six-month political vacuum and anger over arrests of Awakening members in Sunni areas to establish its new foothold.

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