Al Qaeda's brutality and edicts alienate Iraqis

By Mohammed Abbas

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - From the slaughter of children to edicts against suggestively shaped vegetables, al Qaeda's brutality and its imposition of severe Islamic laws have been crucial to its decline in Iraq.

Its enforcement of a severe form of Sunni Islam in areas it controlled made everyday life miserable, sapping support among the people for its campaign against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"I saw them slaughter a nine-year old boy like a sheep because his family didn't pledge allegiance to them," said Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes, an influential Sunni tribal leader from the former al Qaeda stronghold of Anbar province in Iraq's west.

Such violent acts, considered extreme by other Islamist groups, prompted many who initially fought alongside al Qaeda to turn against it. The group has claimed responsibility for indiscriminate bomb attacks in Iraq that have killed thousands.

The group has also posted on the Internet grisly video tapes of its attacks and beheadings of foreigners and Iraqi soldiers.

Singing, shaving and the medical treatment of women by male doctors were all among activities considered by al Qaeda to be haram, or forbidden by Islam, Iraqis around the country who lived under their rule said.

"Al Qaeda prohibited the shaving of beards and banned sideburns and long hair ... Barbers were killed because they did not obey," said Kais Amer, a barber from Mosul in Iraq's north.

The tales may sound fantastic, and are difficult to verify, but people elsewhere in Iraq tell similar stories of al Qaeda's rules. Punishment for disobedience was brutal.

Disgusted by such acts, Sunni Arab tribal leaders -- whose men once formed the backbone of the insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces -- in late 2006 turned on al Qaeda, and with U.S. backing helped drive the group from its former strongholds.

Besides its indiscriminate killings and harsh interpretation of Islam, al Qaeda had also become a serious challenge to tribal authority, seeking control over economic activities and smuggling routes to neighbouring countries.

Attacks across Iraq have fallen some 85 percent from a year ago to lows not seen since 2004, and major security crackdowns are underway in Iraq's north, where U.S. and Iraqi forces say a depleted al Qaeda has regrouped.

"Al Qaeda's very heavy-handed killing of civilians backfired on them. The Sunnis just wouldn't stand for it any more," said Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Albers, intelligence officer for the U.S. division responsible for Baghdad.

"The self-described protectors of the Sunni community now kill more Iraqi Sunnis than anyone else."

WOMEN AND CUCUMBERS

Anbar province in western Iraq was once an al Qaeda bastion, but later became the birthplace of the Sunni tribal leaders' backlash against the group. Tribal leaders range from the very religious to whisky-drinking secularists.