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The JRTN Movement and Iraq’s Next Insurgency
By Michael Knights
This article argues that one driver for the ongoing resilience, or even revival, of Sunni militancy in Iraq is the growing influence of the Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) movement, which has successfully tapped into Sunni Arab fear of Iraq’s Shi`a-led government and the country’s Kurdish population, while offering an authentic Iraqi alternate to al-Qa`ida in Iraq (AQI). The features of JRTN are becoming clearer, providing an interesting case study of an insurgent movement that learned from the mistakes of other militants and has successfully created a hybrid of Islamist themes and nationalist military expertise.
