Understanding Strife in Iraq
Feb. 24, 2006 — -- The events in Iraq over the last few days do not show a new pattern. Rather, the clashes represent an intensification of sectarian and ethnic strife that some insurgent groups have long provoked in an effort to create a level of civil conflict that could paralyze political progress, divide the new armed forces, and either drive the United States out or deprive U.S. forces of American support.
As the United States and the coalition forces phased down their role, and a sovereign Iraqi government increased its influence and power, insurgents increasingly shifted the focus of their attacks to Iraqi government targets, as well as Iraqi military, police and security forces. At the same time, they stepped up attacks designed to prevent Sunnis from participating in the new government and that increased the growing tension and conflict between Sunni and Shiite, and Arab and Kurd.
There are no clear lines of division between insurgents, but the Iraqi Sunni insurgents focused heavily on attacking the emerging Iraqi government, while Islamist extremist movements used suicide bomber attacks and other bombings to cause large casualties among the Shiite and Kurdish populations -- sometimes linking the attacks to religious festivals or holidays and sometimes to attacks on Iraqi forces or their recruiting efforts. They also focused their attacks to strike at leading Shiite and Kurdish political officials, commanders and clergy.
Targeting other groups like Shiites and Kurds, using car bombings for mass killings, hitting shrines and festivals forces the dispersal of security forces, makes the areas hit seem insecure, undermines efforts at governance, and offers the possibility of using civil war as a way to defeat the coalition and the Iraqi interim government's efforts at nation building.
For example, a step up in Sunni attacks on Shiite targets after the January 30, 2005, election, led some Shiites to talk about "Sunni ethnic cleansing." This effect was compounded by bloody suicide bombings, many of which had some form of government target but killed large numbers of Shiite civilians. These attacks resulted in the discovery of 58 corpses dumped in the Tigris, and 19 bodies of national guardsmen, who were mostly Shiite, in a soccer stadium in Haditha. The attacks also included a bombing in Hilla on March 1, 2005, that killed 136 -- mostly Shiite police and army recruits.
