Story by JACKSON MBUVI
Publication Date: 9/27/2007

I HAVE JUST RETURNED FROM A four-day trip to Baghdad and feel I can, without any contradiction, sustain the argument that the Iraq capital is the real Devils’ kitchen if ever there was one.

The chief chef here is the al Qaeda terrorist group, and there are only two items on the menu: death and destruction.

Hardly does a day pass without footage on the Web site about executions by the self-styled al Qaeda outfit called Islamic State in Iraq. Using convoluted logic disguised as religious zeal, the al Qaeda has been capturing innocent people and executing them gangland style — mostly through beheading — and posting the scary stuff on the Internet.

Hiding behind religion to perpetrate this carnage is adding insult to injury because no religion in the world, least of all Islam, which has a most elaborate doctrine on respect for life, teaches its adherents to kill and torture.

THE MOST RECENT EPISODE IN THIS lunacy is the killing of five Iraq army officers. They were captured early last week and the footage of their execution posted on the Web site on Saturday. The images on the Internet capture a masked gunman shooting the blindfolded officers in the head with a pistol as they plead for mercy.

It is a chilling scene for the uninitiated, yet this is what residents of Baghdad wake up to every morning.

On the day I arrived in Iraq, the news of the day was the killing of 25 people by al Qaeda operatives in some suburb northwest of Baghdad.

And the news three days earlier was the butchery of more than 400 people belonging to an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq called Yazidi. In all, about 2,000 people have been killed, including two provincial governors in the last couple of weeks.

Saddam Hussein is dead and interred, but his murderous spirit stills rules in the country he sprayed with death for four decades. The Iraq government, supported by the US-led coalition, may claim to have authority in Baghdad, but the real power in the capital is with underground terror gangs commanded by the al Qaeda.

Which brings us to the question: What makes the al Qaeda tick to an extent that it can literally control a nation even with the mighty US military machine in town?

The name al Qaeda (it means ‘‘The base’’) first captured the world’s imagination on a big scale following the attack in New York on September 11, 2001.

As an organisation, al Qaeda is an off-shoot of the Cold War. It first emerged as a guerilla outfit in Afghanistan intended to counter the December invasion of the country by the then Soviet Union.

Its foremost spiritual leader, strategist and financier then, as now, was Osama bin Laden. His foot soldiers were the hard-line Mujahedeen who, in the fullness of time, gave birth to the Taliban regime.

Once Osama and Mujahedeen succeeded in toppling the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, they suddenly found themselves without a cause to rally behind. They had to find one to which to turn their resources and creativity, if only to remain relevant.

But finding a solid enemy to train guns on as was the case with the Soviet Union during the Afghanistan occupation has not been easy. So Osama has been left to fight amorphously defined groups like enemies of the Palestinian cause, his own defined enemies of Islam, and now the US/Western interests.

Of the three, the US/Western interests appear to be the most attractive. Having sharpened teeth fighting the mighty Soviet Union, an enemy as strong, if not stronger, had to be created.

BUT EXACTLY WHAT MAKES THE AL Qaeda tick? Apparently it is the ability to craftily package their “cause” as one inspired by religion.

For instance, to gain a foothold in Iraq, the al Qaeda has renamed the country the Islamic Republic of Iraq! That way, even the Islamic countries that surround Iraq, and which would ordinarily have nothing to do with al Qaeda and its murderous mission, are hesitant to be seen to be against the creation of an Islamic state.

But deep down, there is no Islamic state in the making. It is all but a reincarnation of the state of blood that Saddam created.

Mr Mbuvi is a security consultant.