According to the Iraqi intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Jaish Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a splinter group of Ansar al-Islam (supporters of Islam), an extreme Kurdish group with suspected links to al-Qaeda.
The group's leader is identified on its Web site as Abu Abdullah al-Hassan bin Mahmoud, thought to be the brother of a leading Ansar al-Islam fighter. Until the invasion of Iraq Ansar al-Islam controlled a string of villages high in the Zagros mountains near the Iranian border.
There they introduced Taliban-style rule and despised the secular, pro-American administrations of the two main Kurdish parties in the self-rule area, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic party, led by Massoud Barzani, whose Irbil offices were targeted with synchronized suicide bombs on Feb. 1.
A total of 109 people were killed and scores more injured in that attack, the worst since the fall of Saddam.
Ansar al-Islam was ousted from its stronghold at the beginning of the war by a joint operation involving PUK peshmerga forces and US air power. Some 200 fighters fled to Iran, the intelligence official said. They had now had time to reorganize and had been filtering back into Iraq where they have joined Sunni Arab extremists to form the new group.
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