Sunni Factions Split With Al-Qaeda Group

He said his group would act against Sunnis "before they sit down at the negotiating table with the Americans, because we have warned them before."

"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."

The letter accuses the al-Qaeda group of "killing innocent people with gases like chlorine," referring to recent chlorine bomb attacks in Baghdad and Anbar. It acknowledged that its leaders were killed because "they expressed their willingness to negotiate with the Americans for their exit from Iraq." In some areas, it said, the al-Qaeda fighters were imposing "Taliban-like" Islamic codes, referring to edicts by the strict former rulers of Afghanistan. By opening a front against the Shiites, the letter said, "the only losers will be the Sunnis who have nothing to do with al-Qaeda."

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."

About three months ago, al-Qaeda fighters began targeting insurgent leaders. Gunfights have taken place in Baghdad neighborhoods such as Abu Ghraib and northern cities such as Taji. In Diyala province, al-Qaeda killed or kidnapped several Sunni insurgent leaders and religious and academic figures, dumping at least one of the bodies into a river in recent weeks, police officials said.

Now, local insurgent groups have united to fight them, erecting checkpoints and patrolling Baqubah and nearby towns, said Abu Jasim, a leader of the Mujaheddin Army. More than 100 al-Qaeda fighters were captured in the towns of Buhriz and Tahrir, the core areas controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq in Diyala, he said.

"Frankly speaking, we don't want an inner Sunni-Sunni fight, and we do not want to have a military collision with al-Qaeda, like what the tribes did, although we have all the right to do so," said Salmani, the Islamic Army commander, referring to the decision of tribal leaders in Anbar to side with the Americans.

But the pressure from al-Qaeda fighters is growing. They have posted statements in mosques and on the Web warning that they will target any Sunni group that defies them. On March 27, they allegedly killed the nephew of Harith al-Dari, the most prominent Sunni cleric in Iraq. The nephew was a senior leader in the 1920 Revolution Brigades, police officials said.

On Monday, gunmen killed an Islamic Army leader south of Samarra, said Capt. Zuhair al-Badri in Samarra. The previous night, two other fighters were killed. Islamic Army leaders immediately blamed al-Qaeda, saying the attack was in retaliation for the letter to bin Laden.

Many of the insurgent groups, however, are reluctant to unite. Abu Aja Naemi, a commander of the 1920 Revolution Brigades based in Duluiyah, north of Baghdad, recalled a meeting among various groups to discuss forming an umbrella organization. The idea fell through, he said, over concerns about turf.

"Every commander of an organization said, 'I have my own method that I am following, and so I am going to follow it,' " said Naemi, who said his fighters have clashed with al-Qaeda in several cities, including Haditha and Husaybah. "If there is greater organization, they worry that in the future they will lose power in their areas. So they work separately."

His own group has splintered in recent weeks, leading to the emergence of a faction of mostly Palestinian fighters calling itself Hamas, after the radical Palestinian organization. Naemi said that for now, the new group was still allied with the 1920 Revolution Brigades and serving as part of its military wing.