Exclusive interviews with Iraqi insurgents

By NBC News

In rare interviews, two of the most influential Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq recently revealed a serious split with the al-Qaida terror group. Spokesmen for the Sunni insurgents took questions from NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann. Kohlmann published the exclusive interview transcripts Wednesday on the website for the NEFA Foundation, where he serves as a Senior Investigator.

The two Iraqi terrorist groups, “Hamas al-Iraq” and the “Al-Rashideen Army”, have insisted that they are part of a unified Sunni effort to force a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. They told Kohlmann that their groups are umbrella organizations for all the major Iraqi insurgent factions--except al-Qaida in Iraq. Why? "Everyone has fought against them because we see this group [al-Qaida] as promoting a particular agenda that does not fit with the realities of Iraqi society,” one of the groups said.

A representative from the "Al-Rashideen Army" openly mocked the repeated demands by Al-Qaida's Deputy Commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri for Sunni insurgents to join under the banner of Al-Qaida. “There is a problem in Tibet for China--is it possible for me to prescribe the solutions for their problem? We are a people in this region for 6,000 years before Christ, end[ing] with Islam, and we are fully capable of rolling and managing our own affairs. We do not need others to tell us what to do,” the Iraqi insurgent said.

To read the complete interviews, click here, and here.