It was a scene that could have been taken from the annals of the Taliban's Afghanistan. On October 18 scores of al-Qa'ida-affiliated gunmen on October 18 staged a boisterous parade in the streets of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's restless western Anbar province, to celebrate the declaration of an Islamic state that claims to govern Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab areas in central and western Iraq, rather than serving as a single, all-encompassing political community and government for the citizens of Iraq. The black-clad gunmen also raised placards vowing to continue to fight the US occupiers and the current Iraqi government. Similar parades were also reported in some towns in the province of Diyala. The self-styled state is to be headed by Amir Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi, a mysterious and hitherto unknown figure, and would include the provinces of Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, Ta'mim, Salah al-Din and Ninawah, as well as parts of the provinces of Babil and Wasit.

A day earlier, the Mujahidin Shura Council, an umbrella organization of a potpourri of salafist groups that include the al-Qa'ida Organization in Mesopotamia (Tanzim al-Qa'ida fi Bilad al-Rafidayn), issued a statement that in effect supports the break-up of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines. The statement describes the move as being in response to the Iraqi parliament's enactment a week earlier of a federalism law allowing provinces to join together to form regions enjoying self-rule. In the words of the Council's statement, which uses the vituperative terminology characteristic of visceral sectarian polemics:

After the Kurds had secured a state in the north and the Rawafid [a derogatory term for the Shi'as] had gained approval of federalism in the south and centre with the support of the Jews in the north and the Safavids [a disparaging reference to the Iranians in the current atmosphere of mounting ethno-sectarian hatreds engulfing Iraq] in the south, protected by armed militias that have black hearts, ideology, and action -- militias that have been killing our Sunni people and subjecting them to the ugliest forms of killing, torture, and displacement. The condition of the Sunnis has become the same as the condition of the orphans on the dining table of wicked people. Therefore, it has become obligatory for the honourable and free Sunni mujahidin 'ulama, and notables to make something for their own brothers, sons and honour.

The size and nature of the Islamic state that the Mujahidin Shura Council intends to form are fraught with indications of future conflict. The self-styled state lays claim to Sunni Arab-dominated provinces which constitute the heartland of the Iraqi insurgency. But there are large pockets of non-Arab and/or non-Sunni populations in other parts, such as in the capital Baghdad, and in and around the cities of Kirkuk in Ta'mim, Tallafar and Mosul in Ninawah, Balad and Dujayl in Salah al-Din, and Khalis and Ba'aquba in Diyala. Moreover, the provinces of Babil and Wasit are predominantly Shi'a and the oil-rich region of Kirkuk is subject to competing claims, mainly by Kurds and Turkmen, and to a lesser extent by Arabs and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians.

The statement also claims that the fighters of the Mujahidin Shura Council have imposed their "control over many areas" where "the enemies have no control." It asserts that "the mujahidin have established the rule of the Shari'ah and religion in these areas at the demand and persistence of the Sunnis themselves." It goes on to "call on all of Iraq's mujahidin, 'ulama, chieftains and Sunnis to pledge allegiance to the Amir of the Faithful, the virtuous Shaykh Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi; to obey him in good and bad times and to work relentlessly to strengthen the foundations of this state and sacrifice ourselves and our precious possessions for its sake."

Very little is known about Baghdadi. It is not yet clear whether the name Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi is an alias for Abdallah Rashid Salih al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahidin Shura Council. Three possible traits of Abu 'Umar Baghdadi can be inferred from a recent 22-minute audio-taped statement issued by Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, alias Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the al-Qa'ida leader in Iraq: that he has attained some education in Islamic religious studies, that he has been an active member of the insurgency, and that he is of Hashemite descent. In the statement posted on the internet on November 10, al-Muhajir pledges allegiance to "the venerable shaykh, the brave hero, the Qurayshi Hashemite, who is of a Husayni origin, the Amir of the Faithful, Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi