Al-Qaeda in Iraq
radical Sunni jihadist group in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was a Salafi jihadist terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. It was founded on 17 October 2004, and was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death on 7 June 2006, when he was killed in a targeted bombing in Hibhib, Iraq by the United States Air Force. On October 15, the organization was dissolved to establish the Islamic State of Iraq.
The group originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999. In 2004 al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Under the leadership of al-Zarqawi, AQI was engaged in various militant activities during the early stages of the Iraqi insurgency, with the objective of expelling the U.S.-led coalition and establishing an Islamic state in Iraq. In January 2006, AQI and seven other Sunni guerrilla groups formed the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), which on 15 October 2006 disbanded to form the "Islamic State of Iraq."
History
The group was founded by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 under the name Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Arabic: جماعة التوحيد والجهاد, lit. 'Congregation of Monotheism and Jihad'). The group is believed to have started bomb attacks in Iraq as of August 2003, five months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Iraq War, targeting UN representatives, Iraqi Shiite institutions, the Jordanian embassy, provisional Iraqi government institutions. After it pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in October 2004, its official name became Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn.
Leadership
On 7 June 2006, the leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his spiritual adviser Abu Abdul Rahman, were both killed by a U.S. airstrike with two 500 lb (230 kg) bombs on a safe house near Baqubah.
The public source identifies “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” as radical Sunni jihadist group in Iraq. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Al-Qaeda, Iraq and radical.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1076058. VIAF identifies the subject as 315977243. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2006, 1999 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.