In the Washington Post, good news in Iraq can positively turn to bad news. The Post reports on the positive situation of Sunnis and Sunni groups leaving and combatting Al Qaida in Iraq’s ‘The Islamic State of Iraq,’ yet surmises this may ultimately be a bad thing because “the split could help isolate a primary foe of the United States in Iraq but could also further splinter the Sunni insurgency and make it even harder to control.” To garner this opinion, the Post received observations from both insurgent leaders and U.S. officials.

Well, you know, this split could make it harder to combat. Several smaller groups not meeting in grand conclaves would certainly make it more difficult to bomb, but the United States didn’t exactly do that anyway.

In the Sunni heartland of Anbar and other provinces, Sunni groups are accusing al-Qaeda in Iraq of killing, kidnapping and torturing dozens of their fighters, clerics and followers. One leading Sunni extremist organization, the Islamic Army, says al-Qaeda has killed more than 30 fighters from different armed factions in recent weeks.

Last weekend, the Islamic Army posted on insurgent Web sites a nine-page letter urging bin Laden to stop those killing in his name. “He should rise up for his faith and assume religious and organizational responsibility for al-Qaeda and search for the truth,” the letter said. “It is not enough to disown those actions, but it is imperative to correct the path.”

The Islamic Army of Iraq is not the best group to use as a test case for this type of article. They are currently aligned with Al Qaida in Iraq, but they certainly have not always been. In fact, the two groups used to compete for heads, literally, and there have been instances of red on red fighting between the two. One case was the last election held in Iraq, where the Islamic Army of Iraq pledged to protect polling areas in Sunni areas from Al Qaida in Iraq attacks.

A better group to determine if there is a real split would be the Army of Ansar al-Sunnah, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s former group before he decided Iraqis just cannot kill like other Sunni Arabs and went foreign. That group is firmly within the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ umbrella group, however Sunni clerics have started to turn against the movement in larger numbers. Police recruiting stations are now buzzing with new potential recruits in Sunni areas, whereas they were not even a few months ago.

But according to the Post, these new intra-Sunni divisions are the “latest addition to a dizzying mosaic of battle lines.”  That “dizzying mosaic of battle lines” though has always existed for anyone to see.  The real “dizzying mosaic” occurs when the Post reports on what anonymous insurgent leaders have said.

Insurgent leaders, in interviews in person or by telephone, offered different explanations for their split. Many said their link to the al-Qaeda groups was tainting their image as a nationalist resistance force. Others said they no longer wanted to be tools of the foreign fighters who lead al-Qaeda. Their war, they insist, is against only the U.S. forces, to pressure them to depart Iraq.

The first two are correct as numerous reports and within their own communiques exist similar thoughts and dialogue, but their war is not just against the Coalition; it’s against the majority Shia Iraqi government.  The Islamic Army of Iraq has made a name for itself not for attacking the United States military, but for attacking the Iraqi military, Iraqi police and the Shia.

“Al-Qaeda has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed within three months. People are tired of the torture,” said Abu Mohammad al-Salmani, an Islamic Army commander, who said the group had written the letter to bin Laden. “We cannot keep silent anymore.”

Al-Salmani should try a new line: “Al Qaida has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in the Anbar Province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed period.”  Al Qaida in Iraq attacks the Iraqi civilian on a daily basis, but not the Coalition soldier.

Khalid Awad, a commander of the Jamiat Brigades, another insurgent group in Anbar, said: “We must confess that if it was not for al-Qaeda, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan would have been occupied. For al-Qaeda has awakened the American ogre against the Islamic nation after the September 11th events, and it is still causing disasters.”

A nice breath of fresh air from Awad, even if he believes the United States is an ogre.

Within these Sunni groups who oppose Al Qaida in Iraq, other splits happen and have happened for at least four years.  There are divisions over nationalities even though we are always told in Islamist circles they are a nation of Islam and not Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, etc., but there are also divisions over tactics.  If a group did not carry out a bloody enough campaign in a given month, the more hardcore element will splinter off and spring up with a new name and gameplan to spill blood in the name of Allah.

It would seem this is a positive occurence because each smaller group becomes more disjointed and less able to carry out the larger attacks needed to garner press attention and, frankly, slaughter a good number of innocents, but the Post explains that may not be the case through the words of Tariq al-Hashimi.

“If they maintain their independence from each other and each one has its different strategy, there will be chaos on the ground and chaos at the [negotiating] table,” said Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice president and leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Well, there’s that, however there’s also the concept of splitting groups up and bringing them to the table one at a time.  That’s how counter-insurgency is fought.  Divide and conquer.