THE IRAQI INSURGENCY

Sunni insurgent groups

(top row):

• Jihad Factions of Iraq,

• Al-Qassas Brigade,

• Al-Rashedeen Army,

• Islamic State of Iraq,

• Mujahideen Army;

(bottom row)

• Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI),

• 1920 Revolution Brigades,

• IAI.

For somebody in America, Evan Kohlmann has a remarkably intimate view of the Iraq insurgency. In 2004, he founded GlobalTerrorAlert.com, a clearinghouse of virtually every communiqué -- video, audio, Internet, printed -- issued by insurgent groups in Iraq. For three years, Kohlmann has pored through every one of them, with the help of Arabic translators, and emerged with a clear-eyed view of who is fighting whom in Iraq and why. Given his insights, Kohlmann has been put to work as a consultant by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA.