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Part
III: The Iraqi Insurgency |
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| The Iraqi Insurgency that followed the second
Gulf War has taken more American and Coalition combat lives
than the actual war. Tactics including beheadings,
kidnapping, murder, intimidation and not to mention the non
ending onslaught of road side bombs that have killed and
severely injured so many allied forces trying to restore peace
in Iraq. Now that Saddam is gone and a new government is
in place the violence has not subsided. The Iraqi
Insurgency is a dynamic force with many heads that are not
connected as a whole. Each insurgent group is operating
on it's on behalf and for their own ideological reasons.
The best way to look at this is to breakdown the known groups
that are fighting against U.S. Coalition troops and/or the new
Iraq government. An Important thing to remember about
this type of guerilla warfare is that U.S. and Coalition
troops losses have been high and regrettable, but the actual
figure of dead Iraqi civilian casualties is enormous in comparison
since the campaign of terror against their neighborhoods
started. |
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Al Qaeda in Iraq
The Al Qaeda terrorists we face in Iraq are part of the same enemy
that attacked the United States on 9/11. While there is
a debate in Washington about al Qaeda’s role in Iraq, the facts
are that al Qaeda in Iraq is an organization
founded by foreign terrorists, led largely by foreign terrorists,
and loyal to Osama bin Laden. The organization swore it
allegiance to Osama Bin Laden's network and was originally founded
by a Jordanian named Abu
Musab Al Zarqawi.
Before 9/11, Zarqawi ran a terrorist
camp in Afghanistan.
According to U.S. intelligence community, Zarqawi had longstanding
relations with senior al Qaeda leaders and had met with Osama bin
Laden and Ayman Zawahiri. In 2001, Zarqawi left Afghanistan and
eventually went to Iraq to set up operations with terrorist
associates after Coalition forces destroyed his Afghan training
camp. In 2004, Zarqawi
and his terrorist group formally joined al Qaeda, pledged
allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and promised to “follow his orders
in jihad.” Bin Laden publicly declared Zarqawi the
“Prince of Al Qaeda in Iraq” and instructed
terrorists in Iraq to “listen to him and obey him.” al Qaeda
in Iraq has been very effective at pulling off spectacular attacks
on US led coalition forces as well as on Iraqi civilian targets.
Early on in 2004 this terrorist group concentrated on kidnapping
and eventually beheading their hostages. In 2005 Al Qaeda in
Iraq began to deploy suicide bombers from around the globe that
tracked to the embattled nation to offer their lives in order to
kill as many U.S. and coalition personnel as possible. The
use of car bombs and more suicide bombers seemed to become the
mainstay of this terrorist unit. In September
2005, Zarqawi reportedly declared "all-out war" on Shia in Iraq in
response to the Shia government offensive on the Sunni town of Tal
Afar.
AL Qaeda in Iraq took a major blow in the Summer
of 2006 when Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike. As of
2007 the terrorist group began losing it's foothold in Iraq.
I do not mean that they have lost, but rather that Al Qaeda in
Iraq has possibly worn out it's welcome. AQI has used
merciless methods for killing which has resulted in large numbers
of death in Iraq. The same Sunni tribes and towns that
harbored them originally began to question the methods that the
group used. Too many Iraqis both Sunni and Shia were dieing.
The tribal leaders even though fearful of AL Qaeda began attacking
and pushing the group out of their areas and into other areas.
The second reason for the demise of the group was that Iraqi Sunni
militias that originally worked with AL Qaeda in Iraq were now
working with the new Shia led government and U.S. troops.
This began to leave Al Qaeda in Iraq without a country, isolated
and running out of places to plan and hide. The U.S. troop
surge weakened the operational network even further and routed out
many AQI members from their hiding. Currently early in 2008,
Al Qaeda in Iraq is down but not completely out. The
conditions on the ground are still volatile and a new surge from
this group can emerge again. The biggest threat of this
return would be likely caused by attacks from Shia militias from
the South or crackdowns on Sunni groups that may feel
disenfranchised by the current Shia led government in Baghdad.
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The Shia Militias
The majority of Iraqis are of the
Shia sect of Islam. In Iraq of the past this was not a
real issue as Sunni and Shia would have inter sect marriages
without any problems. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein
and his Ba'athists regime everything has changed. Your
religious sect means almost everything now. Shia and
Sunni have waged a secular war with revenge killings using
Death Squads murdering thousands of Iraqi civilians. The
most worrisome Shia Militia is undoubtedly the Mahdi Army
which originated in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The
group possesses a deep and disciplined following for their
founder and leader Muqtada al-Sadr. He is the most
powerful religious leader that is not part of the Newly formed
Iraqi Government. |
In 2004 his Militia fought diligently against U.S. and
coalition troops after his newspaper was shut down and attempts to
arrest him were made. for two months his regiments fought
with U.S. forces until a truce was signed that would disband his
militia and he would become part of the newly formed government.
The truce only lasted a few months before hostilities resumed in
Sadr City. Muqtada al-Sadr leads over 10,000 militiamen and
has been very critical of the U.S. occupation in Iraq. He
has very close ties inside Iran and has fled to the neighboring
country for periods of time to escape from Coalition forces and
Iraqi police. He has many sympathizers throughout the Shia
population and has become a very political and polarizing force.
He has the ability to create a lot of problems for the new and
untested government which has at times protected him. He has
been a tough nut to crack and his close ties to Iran is
bothersome. Iran has been accused of supplying very
technical and advanced IED devices that have killed many U.S. and
Coalition forces. The Mahdi Army is widely accused of
propelling the cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to
plunge the country into all-out civil war .Since August 2006 the
Mahdi Army and al-Sadr have not challenged coalition troops on a
wide scale. Neither the coalition or the Iraqi government has made
any move to arrest al-Sadr and they have not challenged the Army's
de facto control over a number of areas in southern Iraq. The Army
continues to provide security in a number of southern cities.
The latest news is not so good. In March 2008 al-Sadr has
launched a nationwide civil disobedience campaign across Iraq to
protest raids and detentions against the Mahdi Army members.
This is also a result of the clashes that occurring in the
Southern town of Basra between Iraqi security forces and the Mahdi
Army. The perplexing idea of why is this guy still operating
and not in custody. He has led uprisings and his militants
have been a problem since their origination 5 years ago. It
appears that he his ability to fight and then accept a truce only
to break it again has worked very well for him. As long as
he has the ability to influence his Army and dictate orders to
them Iraq will be in jeopardy.
SEE ALSO:
Al-Sadr And His
Militia
Ba'athists
The Ba'athists prior to the 2nd Gulf War was the political
party of Saddam Hussein and held great power and prestige in the
Saddam Regime. Their initial hope after the fall of Baghdad
was to return Saddam and the Ba'athists back to power and to go
back to business as usual. Now that Saddam has been captured
and executed the former political party has come to terms that
their is no place for the Ba'athists Regime in the new form of
Iraq government. It is very difficult for a group to lose
power, especially a minority leadership that was as deadly and
unforgiving as the Ba'athists were under Saddam. For the
most part, the remnants of the former party has splintered and the
only resistance from this group comes from the militia branch
called the Fedayeen that gave a staunch resistance during the US
led invasion in 2003. They ambushed convoy trucks and
resisted U.S. and coalition troops. They are also suspected
members of Death Squads that have occasionally targeted Shiite
neighborhoods after the new Shia led government was in place.
Sunni Nationalists
Sunni are a minority in Iraq. The interesting thing about
this population is that they have been able to control the power
of Iraq since Britain Colonial rule ended over fifty years ago.
Many of the members involved with the insurgency are former Iraqi
military forces. The goals of this group is to remove
foreign presence from Iraq and to restore a Sunni led government
for Iraq. The group has been accused of revenge killings of
Shia civiliams. Sunni nationalist guerrillas and jihadists battled
with each other in the Iraqi capital in May 2007, marking a
significant shift in the focus of al Qaeda and its allies, which
have thus far mostly struck Shiite targets. The struggle over the
leadership of the Sunni insurgency is reaching a critical phase
due to the multilevel political dealings aimed at reaching a
power-sharing settlement in Iraq. The jihadists are trying to
exploit internal differences among the Sunnis, but they probably
will not succeed since their actions likely will end up unifying
the various Sunni groups against al Qaeda and its allies even
deeper.
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