New York Times on Al Qaeda in Iraq

See January 7, 2007 New York Times “The Ever-Mutating Iraq Insurgency”

“Al Qaeda in Iraq emerged after the American invasion, seeking to defeat the United States, destroy the Iraqi state and create a larger Middle Eastern Sunni Islamic state. It is extremely brutal, staging many suicide attacks.
Al Quaeda in Iraq’s bombing of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra, a Shiite shrine, provoked Shiite attacks on Sunnis.”