Iraqi Insurgency (2003–2011)

The Iraqi insurgency lasted from 2003 until 2011, beginning shortly after the 2003 American invasion deposed longtime leader Saddam Hussein, and lasting until the end of the Iraq War and U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It was followed by a renewed insurgency.

The initial outbreak of violence (the 2003–2006 phase) was triggered by the fall and preceded the establishment of the new Iraqi government by the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF–I), which was led by the United States. From around 2004 to May 2007, Iraqi insurgents largely focused their attacks on MNF-I troops, but later shifted to targeting the post-invasion Iraqi security forces as well.

The insurgents were composed of a diverse mix of private militias, pro-Saddam Ba'athists, local Iraqis opposed to the MNF–I and/or the post-Saddam Iraqi government, and a number of foreign jihadists. The various insurgent groups fought an asymmetric war of attrition against the MNF–I and the Iraqi government, while also fighting among themselves.

The insurgency was shaped by sectarian tensions in Iraq, particularly between Shia Muslims (~60% of the population) and Sunni Muslims (~35% of the population). By February 2006, the violence escalated into a Shia–Sunni civil war, and for the next two years, the MNF–I and the Iraqi government were locked in intense fighting with various militants, who were also targeting each other based on their sectarian affiliations. Many of the militant attacks in American-controlled territories were directed at the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki. Militancy continued amid post-invasion Iraqi reconstruction efforts, as the federal government tried to establish itself in the country. The civil war and sectarian violence ended in mid-2008, having been quelled by the American troop surge of 2007.

However, after the American withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, a renewed sectarian and anti-government insurgency swept through the country, causing thousands of casualties. Two years later, the violence of the new insurgency escalated into the Second Iraq War, largely triggered by the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Background

The 2003 invasion of Iraq (20 March – 1 May 2003) began the Iraq War, or ''Operation Iraqi Freedom'', in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein within 26 days of major combat operations. The invasion phase consisted of a conventionally fought war which concluded with the capture of the Iraq capital Baghdad by U.S. forces.

Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 20 March to 15 April 2003. These were the United States (148,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194). Thirty-six other countries were involved in its aftermath. In preparation for the invasion, 100,000 U.S. troops were assembled in Kuwait by 18 February. The United States supplied the majority of the invading forces, but also received support from Kurdish irregulars in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The invasion was preceded by an air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on 20 March 2003. The following day coalition forces launched an incursion into Basra Province from their massing point close to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. While the special forces launched an amphibious assault from the Persian Gulf to secure Basra and the surrounding petroleum fields, the main invasion army moved into southern Iraq, occupying the region and engaging in the Battle of Nasiriyah on 23 March. Massive air strikes across the country and against Iraqi command and control threw the defending army into chaos and prevented an effective resistance. On 26 March the 173rd Airborne Brigade was airdropped near the northern city of Kirkuk where they joined forces with Kurdish rebels and fought several actions against the Iraqi army to secure the northern part of the country.

The main body of coalition forces continued their drive into the heart of Iraq and met with little resistance. Most of the Iraqi military was quickly defeated and Baghdad was occupied on 9 April. Other operations occurred against pockets of the Iraqi army including the capture and occupation of Kirkuk on 10 April, and the attack and capture of Tikrit on 15 April. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the central leadership went into hiding as the coalition forces completed the occupation of the country.

On 1 May, an end of major combat operations was declared, ending the invasion stage of the Iraq War and beginning the military occupation period and the Iraqi insurgency against coalition forces.

On 23 May 2003, Iraqi military personnel, police and security services were disbanded per Order 2 of the Coalition Provisional Authority under Administrator Paul Bremer, leaving 400,000 soldiers and officers jobless, providing a ready pool of recruits for Islamist groups and other insurgents that emerged. Furthermore, for 10 months Iraq's borders were left open for anyone to come in without even a visa or a passport.

History

2003–2006: initial insurgency

The Iraqi insurgency of 2003–06 erupted following the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's rule in May 2003. The armed insurgent opposition to the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government lasted until early 2006, when it deteriorated into a sectarian civil war, the most violent phase of the Iraq War.

2006–2008: insurgency to civil war

Following the U.S.-launched 2003 invasion of Iraq, the situation deteriorated, and by 2007, the intercommunal violence between Iraqi Sunni and Shi'a factions was described by the National Intelligence Estimate as having elements of a civil war. In a 10 January 2007 address to the American people, President George W. Bush stated that "80% of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis." Two polls of Americans conducted in 2006 found that between 65% and 85% believed Iraq was in a civil war; however, a similar poll of Iraqis conducted in 2007 found that 61% did not believe that they were in a civil war.[]

In October 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Politics of Iraq, Iraqi government estimated that more than 370,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million.UNHCR – Iraq: Latest return survey shows few intending to go home soon
. Published 29 April 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2008. The estimated number of orphans across Iraq has ranged from 400,000 (according to the Baghdad Provincial Council), to five million (according to Iraq's anti-corruption board). A UN report from 2008 placed the number of orphans at about 870,000. The Red Cross has also stated that Iraq's humanitarian situation remains among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.

According to the Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq was one of the world's top 5 unstable states from 2005 to 2008. A poll of top U.S. foreign policy experts conducted in 2007 showed that over the next 10 years, just 3% of experts believed the U.S. would be able to rebuild Iraq into a "beacon of democracy" and 58% of experts believed that Sunni-Shiite tensions would dramatically increase in the Middle East.

In June 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that "the security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive; however, they remain fragile, reversible and uneven." In July 2008, the audit arm of the U.S. Congress recommended that the U.S. Government should "develop an updated strategy for Iraq that defines U.S. goals and objectives after July 2008 and addresses the long-term goal of achieving an Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself". Steven Simon, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in May 2008 that "the recent short-term gains" had "come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq."

After Iraqi security forces took the lead in security operations on 30 June 2009, Iraq experienced a "dramatic reduction in war-related violence of all types ..., with civilian and military deaths down by 80 to 90 percent compared with the same period in 2008."

2008–2011: low-level insurgency

In 2010, a low point for the al-Qaeda effort in Iraq, car bombings declined to an average of ten a month and multiple-location attacks occurred only two or three times a year.

Aftermath

2011–2013: American withdrawal and renewed insurgency

The Iraqi attacks since U.S. withdrawal relates to the last stage of violent terror activities engaged by Iraqi, primarily radical Sunni and Shia insurgent groups against the central government and the sectarian warfare between various factions within Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. The events of post-U.S. withdrawal violence succeeded the previous insurgency in Iraq (prior to 18 December 2011), but have shown increasingly violent patterns, raising concerns that the surging violence might slide into another civil war.

Militant organizations

The Iraqi insurgency is composed of at least a dozen major organizations and perhaps as many as 40 distinct groups. These groups are subdivided into countless smaller cells. The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that less than 10% of insurgents are non-Iraqi foreign fighters. According to the Chief of the British General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, speaking in September 2007,

Because of its clandestine nature, the exact composition of the Iraqi insurgency is difficult to determine, but the main groupings are:
* Ba'athists, the supporters of Saddam Hussein's former administration including army or intelligence officers, whose ideology is a variant of Pan-Arabism.
* Iraqi nationalists, Iraqis who believe in a strong version of Iraqi self-determination. These policies may not necessarily espouse a Pan-Arab ideology, but rather advocate the country's territorial integrity including Kuwait and Khuzestan. Historical figures of this movement include the pre-Ba'athist leader of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim and his government.
* Iraqi Salafi Islamists, the indigenous armed followers of the Salafi movement, as well as any remnants of the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam: individuals with a Salafi-only policy opposed to non-Salafis though not aligned to one specific ethnic group. Though opposed to the U.S.-led invasion, these groups are not wholly sympathetic towards the former Ba'ath Party as its members included non-Salafis.
* Shi'a militias, including the southern, Iran-linked Badr Organization, the Mahdi Army, and the central-Iraq followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. These groups neither advocate the dominance of a single ethnic group, nor the traditional ideologies behind the Iraqi state (e.g. these particular Shi'as do not support the capture of Khuzestan or other border areas with Iran, but rather promote warm relations with Iran's Shi'a government).
* Foreign Islamist volunteers, including those often linked to al Qaeda and largely driven by the Salafi/Wahhabi doctrine (the two preceding categories are often lumped as "jihadists");
* Possibly some socialist revolutionaries (such as the Iraqi Armed Revolutionary Resistance, which claimed one attack in 2007).
* Non-violent resistance groups and political parties (not part of the armed insurgency).

Arab nationalists

Ba'athists and pro-Saddamists

The Ba'athists include former Ba'ath Party officials, the Fedayeen Saddam, the Special Republican Guard and some former agents of the Iraqi intelligence elements and security services, such as the Mukhabarat and the Special Security Organization. Their goal, at least before the capture of Saddam Hussein, was the restoration of the former Ba'athist government to power. The pre-war organization of the Ba'ath Party and its militias as a cellular structure aided the continued pro-Saddam resistance after the fall of Baghdad, and Iraqi intelligence operatives may have developed a plan for guerrilla war following the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power.

Following Saddam's capture, the Ba'athist movement largely faded; its surviving factions were increasingly shifting to either nationalist factions (Iraqi, though not Pan-Arab, such as the ideology of the pre-Ba'athist regime), or Islamist (Sunni or Shia, depending on the actual faith of the individual, though Ba'ath Party policy had been secular).

As the goal of restoring the Ba'ath Party to power was seemingly out of reach, the alternative solution appeared to be to join forces with organisations who opposed the U.S.-led invasion. Many former Ba'athists had adopted an Islamist façade to attract more credibility within the country, and perhaps gain support from outside Iraq. Others, especially following the January 2005 elections, became more interested in politics.

The fall of Baghdad effectively ended the existence of the Fedayeen Saddam as an organized paramilitary. Several of its members died during the war. A large number survived, however, and were willing to carry on the fight even after the fall of Saddam Hussein from power. Many former members joined guerrilla organizations that began to form to resist the U.S-led coalition in Iraq. Some Fedayeen members fled to Syria. By June, an insurgency was underway in central and northern Iraq, especially in an area known as the Sunni Triangle. Some units of the Fedayeen also continued to operate independently of other insurgent organizations in the Sunni areas of Iraq. On 30 November 2003, a U.S. convoy traveling through the town of Samarra in the Sunni Triangle was ambushed by over 100 Iraqi guerillas, reportedly wearing trademark Fedayeen Saddam uniforms.

Following the execution of Saddam Hussein, Deputy Leader of the Iraqi-cell of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party and former Vice President of Iraq Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri became a leading candidate to succeed him as Leader of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. Ad-Douri had taken over the running of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party following Saddam Hussein's capture in 2003 and had been endorsed by a previously unknown group calling itself Baghdad Citizens Gathering. On 3 January 2007 the website of the banned Iraqi Ba'ath Party confirmed that he was new leader of the party.

Increasing Syrian influence in the Iraqi Ba'ath Party may well have a major effect on result in a fragmentation of Ba'athist parts of the insurgency.Battle for New Leader Likely
''The Guardian'', 1 January 2007

Iraqi nationalists (non-Ba'athist)

Iraqi nationalists are mostly drawn from the Arab regions. Their reasons for opposing the Coalition vary from a rejection of the Coalition presence as a matter of principle to the failure of the multinational forces to fully restore public services and to quickly restore complete sovereignty.

One notable leader of the insurgency among nationalist Sunni is former aide to Saddam Hussein and a former regional Ba'ath Party Organiser Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed al-Muwali who has been crossing the border between Iraq and Syria disbursing funds, smuggling weaponry and organising much of the fighting in the central area of Iraq.

One former minister in the interim government, Ayham al-Samarai, announced the launch in 2005 of "a new political movement, saying he aimed to give a voice to figures from the legitimate Iraqi resistance. 'The birth of this political bloc is to silence the skeptics who say there is no legitimate Iraqi resistance and that they cannot reveal their political face,' he told a news conference." It is unclear what became of this movement.

Shia militias

Government inefficacy and Iranian support

The Shia militias have presented Nouri al-Maliki with perhaps the greatest conundrum of his administration given the capture of Amarah. American officials have pressed him hard to disarm the militias and rid the state security forces of their influence.

A 2008 report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point based on reports from the interrogations of dozens of captured Shia fighters described an Iranian-run network smuggling Shia fighters into Iran where they received training and weapons before returning to Iraq.

Badr Organization

One major Shia militia in Iraq is the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq. The group is currently based in Karbala, Iraq, and is also active in areas throughout southern Iraq. The group was formed by the Iranian Government to fight the Saddam Hussein-controlled Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. Originally, the group consisted of Iraqi exiles who were banished from Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. After the war ended in 1988, the organization remained in Iran until Saddam Hussein was overthrown during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Following the invasion, the brigade then moved into Iraq, became members of the new Iraq Army, and aided coalition forces in insurgents.

Colonel Derek Harvey told Reuters "that the U.S. military detained Badr assassination teams possessing target lists of Sunni officers and pilots in 2003 and 2004 but did not hold them. Harvey said his superiors told him that 'this stuff had to play itself out' – implying that revenge attacks by returning Shi'ite groups were to be expected. He also said Badr and ISCI offered intelligence and advice to U.S. officials on how to navigate Iraqi politics."

In a letter published by the Coalition in February 2004, an insurgent believed to be Zarqawi wrote that jihadis should start an open sectarian war so that Sunnis would mobilize against what would otherwise be a secret war being waged by Shia. The author only specifically pointed to assassinations carried out by the Badr Brigade as an example of this secret war.

In December 2005, the group and their leaders in the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq participated in parliament elections, under the pro-Shiite coalition known as the United Iraqi Alliance, and managed to get 36 members into the Iraqi Parliament.

The Badr organization supports the government of Nouri Al-Maliki.

Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army

Supporters of the young Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are largely impoverished men from the Shi'a urban areas and slums in Baghdad and the southern Shi'a cities. The Mahdi Army area of operation stretches from Basra in the south to the Sadr City section of Baghdad in central Iraq (some scattered Shi'a militia activity has also been reported in Baquba and Kirkuk, where Shi'a minorities exist).

During his group's active militant phase, Al-Sadr enjoyed wide support from the Iraqi people according to some polls. A poll by the Iraq Center for Research and Studies found that 32% of Iraqis "strongly supported" him and another 36% "somewhat supported" him, making him the second most popular man in Iraq, behind only Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. The Mahdi Army is believed to have around 60,000 members.

After the December 2005 elections in Iraq, Al-Sadr's party got 32 new seats giving him substantial political power in the divided Iraqi Parliament. In January 2006, he used these seats to swing the vote for prime minister to Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, giving Al-Sadr a legitimate stake in the new Iraqi government and allying Al-Jaafari with the cleric.

On 27 November 2006, a senior American intelligence official told reporters that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army. The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shia militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training. Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shia militias in Iraq, the official said. "There seems to have been a strategic decision taken sometime over late winter or early spring by Damascus, Tehran, along with their partners in ait Lebanese Hezbollah, to provide more support to Sadr to increase pressure on the U.S.," the American intelligence official said.

Foreign participants

When Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, several documents were found in his possession. One particular document, which was apparently written after he lost power, appeared to be a directive to his Ba'athist loyalists warning them to be wary of Islamist mujahideen and other foreign Arabs entering the country to join the insurgency. The directive supposedly shows Saddam having concerns that foreign fighters would not share the same objectives as Ba'ath loyalists (i.e. the eventual return of Saddam to power and the restoration of his regime). A U.S. official commenting on the document stressed that while Saddam urged his followers to be cautious in their dealings with other Arab fighters, he did not order them to avoid contact or rule out co-operation. Bruce Hoffman, a Washington counter-terrorism expert stated that the existence of the document underscores the fact that "this is an insurgency cut of many different cloths... ndeverybody's jockeying for their position of power in the future Iraq." Many experts believe that fighters from other countries who have flocked to Iraq to join the insurgents are motivated by animosity toward the United States and the desire to install an Islamic state in place of the Ba'ath Party's secular regime.

Foreign fighters are mostly Arabs from neighboring countries, who have entered Iraq, primarily through the porous desert borders of Syria and Saudi Arabia, to assist the Iraqi insurgency. Many of these fighters are Wahhabi fundamentalists who see Iraq as the new "field of jihad" in the battle against U.S. forces. It is generally believed that most are freelance fighters, but a few members of Al-Qaeda and the related group Ansar al-Islam are suspected of infiltrating into the Sunni areas of Iraq through the mountainous northeastern border with Iran. The United States and its allies point to Jordanian-born Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the key player in this group. Zarqawi was considered the head of an insurgent group called Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad ("Monotheism and Holy War") until his death on 7 June 2006, which according to U.S. estimates numbers in the low hundreds.

Usage of the term "foreign fighters" has received criticism as being Western-centric because, taken literally, the term would encompass all non-Iraqi forces, including Coalition forces. Zarqawi has taken to taunting the American forces about the irony of the term: "Who is the foreigner, O cross worshippers? You are the ones who came to the land of the Muslims from your distant corrupt land." (Communiqué of 10 May 2005). Zarqawi's group has since announced the formation of the Ansar platoon, a squad of Iraqi suicide bombers, which an AP writer called "an apparent bid to deflect criticism that most suicide bombers in Iraq are foreigners."

While it is not known how many of those fighting the U.S. forces in Iraq are from outside the country, it is generally agreed that foreign fighters make up a very small percentage of the insurgency. Major General Joseph Taluto, head of the 42nd Infantry Division, said that "99.9 per cent" of captured Insurgents are Iraqi. The estimate has been confirmed by the Pentagon's own figures; in one analysis of over 1000 insurgents captured in Fallujah, only 15 were non-Iraqi. According to the ''Daily Telegraph'', information from military commanders engaging in battles around Ramadi exposed the fact that out of 1300 suspected insurgents arrested in five months of 2005, none were foreign, although Colonel John L. Gronski stated that foreigners provided money and logistical support: "The foreign fighters are staying north of the uphratesriver, training and advising, like the Soviets were doing in Vietnam"

In September 2006, the ''Christian Science Monitor'' reported, "It's true that foreign fighters are in Iraq, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But they are a small minority of the insurgents, say administration critics. Most Iraqi mujahideen are Sunnis who fear their interests will be ignored under Iraq's Shia-dominated government. They are fighting for concrete, local political goals – not the destruction of America." The paper quoted University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole: "If the Iraqi Sunni nationalists could take over their own territory, they would not put up with the few hundred foreign volunteers blowing things up, and would send them away or slit their throats." In 2005, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) concluded that foreign fighters accounted for less than 10% of the estimated 30,000 insurgents and argued that the U.S. and Iraqi Governments were "feeding the myth" that they comprised the backbone of the insurgency.

Despite the low numbers of foreign fighters their presence has been confirmed in several ways and Coalition forces believe the majority of suicide bombings are believed to be carried out by non-Iraqi foreigners. Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert with the Congressional Research Service, stated in June 2005: "I still think 80 percent of the Insurgents, the day-to-day activity, is Iraqi – the roadside bombings, mortars, direct weapons fire, rifle fire, automatic weapons fire... utthe foreign fighters attract the headlines with the suicide bombings, no question."

In September 2005, Iraqi and U.S. forces conducted a counter-insurgency operation in the predominantly Turkmen town of Tal Afar