Baghdad, Wednesday 12 November 2008: The jihadists of al-Qaida in Iraq are weakened but may regain influence, especially if integration of the anti-Qaida Sahwa forces into Iraq’s security structure is unsuccessful, analysts say.

The recently begun process of transferring supervision of the Sahwa groups from the United States military to the Iraqi government is the key issue, according to Mohammed al-Masri, of the University of Jordan Centre for Strategic Studies.

“The inclusion of these Sahwa tribes in the security apparatus is the question. If they are able do to this swiftly and quickly, al-Qaida in Iraq will be even more limited. “If they don’t do it, these tribes can go back to revive AQI all over again. They can reinvent themselves as AQI-like organisations,” he said.

Al-Qaida supporters have been hunted down by Iraqi and US forces as well as by tribal militias and in some areas of Iraq they have been been defeated or have simply fled. Elsewhere, however, they are regrouping or forming sleeper cells awaiting better days, analysts believe.