Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) took a serious toll on Ansar al-Islam.  The group's sanctuary in Kurdistan was repeatedly bombed during the initial invasion, and many of its members attempted to flee to Iran.  Those that remained on Iraqi soil were forced to keep a low profile.  In another serious blow, the group's leader, Mullah Krekar, was arrested in January 2004 in Norway, where he had been living in exile for more than twelve years.  Although Ansar"s original cadre has been diminished, the US occupation may have spurred a resurgence of the organization and an infusion of new members in the form of foreign jihadists.  The group now promotes the establishment of an Islamic state in all of Iraq, but its first goal is driving out the American and coalition troops.

Ansar al-Jihad ("Supporters of Jihad") is one of a number of Islamist groups currently operating in Iraq, although not one of the most prominent or dangerous.  Their one successful terrorist operation was the November 2004 kidnapping of a number of relatives of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.  The group threatened to behead the hostages if their demands, which included the release of all prisoners in Iraq and a stop of armed operations against the city of Fallujah, were not met.  The hostages, however, were released without incident.  It remains unknown if negotiations were carried out with the group.

The last information heard from the group was in February 2005 when it promised to escalate attacks on American, Iraqi and coalition troops.  In a statement posted on the internet, Ansar al-Jihad also claimed that "we neither recognize the elections that took place nor do we recognize their results."

Ansar Allah's first claimed attack came in July, 1994, with the bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Aid Association (AMIA), which resulted in nearly a hundred dead civilians.  Ansar Allah had never been heard of before this attack, but it is widely suspected that the group was linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization backed by Iran, that has been responsible for acts of terrorism since the 1980's.  Officials from the US State Department believe that Ansar Allah is a "clandestine subgroup" of Hezbollah, after it issued communiqu&eacute;s relating to its attacks in Argentina and Panama.  No known claims of responsibility for these attacks have been issued by representatives of Hezbollah as a whole, which has established activities in the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.  The high proportion of Jewish passengers on the Panamanian plane also raised suspicions that the group is related to, or possibly an alias for, Hezbollah.