Tasking: I'd like following questions answered

Terrorism and Insurgency            TOP

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been faced with serious internal violence throughout its term and this situation is likely to persist, albeit at far less intensive levels than in 2006 and 2007. Attack levels are down 90 per cent from the start of the US 'surge' (in which an additional 20,000 troops were brought into Baghdad and Al-Anbar province) and also due to the emergence of Sunni 'Awakening Councils' (or 'Sons of Iraq') militias, comprised of former insurgents who opted to abandon violence against the state in return for a promise to be included in military and security forces. Attacks on the MNF have also largely been reduced due to conflict fatigue, local truces, coalition engagement activities and the withdrawal of elements of the MNF itself. The number of foreign fighters entering Iraq dropped to fewer than 10 a month in the first half of 2009, compared to between 80 and 110 fighters per month in the first half of 2007.

Political            TOP

Though it is difficult to disentangle the different strands of the Sunni insurgency, it is clear that irreconcilable Baathist FRE have played a key role in fomenting and facilitating anti-coalition and anti-government activities in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq. This network has lost its Baathist appearance, and perhaps much of its commitment to a Baathist return, but it continues to exist as a number of linked associates. FRE cadres include elements in exile in Damascus and eastern Syria, and Iraq-based networks, which mainly draw their power from Baathist structures that continue to exist in the Sunni triangle, the old presidential security triangle between Baghdad, Balad and Tikrit. The objectives of this fractious and loosely connected network are increasingly mercenary, although FRE elements are clearly committed to the expulsion of foreign and Shia and Kurdish security forces from core Sunni triangle areas. Indicators suggest that Syrian-based Baathist leadership figures have split into two major factions; one under Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, and another under Younis al-Ahmed, who appears to reside in Syria.

Although such Baathist notables appear to provide financial and networking support to the FRE effort, a stratum of former colonels and majors numbering in the high hundreds makes up the current leadership. FRE make two key inputs to the insurgency. The first is money (at least USD500 million of Baathist funds remains unaccounted for and the total in FRE hands is probably considerably higher), which is used to pay the incidental costs of the insurgency, to commission 'paid-for' attacks and to maintain loyalty relationships. The second is facilitation through a network of mid-level organisers and cash couriers drawn from the ranks of the various intelligence and regime security organisations, anchored at the local community level by fugitive Baath Party officials with strong tribal connections.

Since mid-2007, former Baathists have been re-integrated into national structures, particularly the Iraqi Army, the National Police and the Emergency Reaction Units at provincial levels. This is gradually splintering the moderate former Baathists from the irreconcilables. The passage of the Accountability and Justice Law in Iraq's parliament on 11 January 2008 will not substantially affect the outlook of the small cadre of senior Baathists that remain outside the political system. It may allow some more junior insurgents to be reintegrated. Full amnesty legislation has led to the release of large numbers of detainees into society as long as they have only attacked coalition personnel (as opposed to Iraqi forces or civilians).

FRE networks facilitate entry into Iraq for secular and religious militants. They maintain strong ties with the Sunni Arabs of eastern Syria. This area retains close tribal links to the Sunni triangle and remains a Baathist stronghold after decades of falling under the footprint of Baathist television stations from Iraq. This community knows the long and largely open Iraqi-Syrian border better than anyone due to their economic dependence on cross-border smuggling. Once fighters are inside Iraq, FRE networks facilitate travel and meetings through a network of 'minders' that facilitate the movement of fighters, money and key bomb components. These are typically former members of the intelligence services, Special Republican Guard and Republican Guard or the former local Baath Party officials in each province. At the local level, FRE affiliates directly commission Iraqi resisters (criminals, the unemployed or the aggrieved) to carry out 'paid-for' attacks on foreign or government forces, often with bonuses for successful attacks. In many cases, FRE co-operate with local Sunni Arab militias that have previously entered into negotiations with the central government and which may eventually join the political process.

In addition to logistical support, FRE provide specialist technical skills such as bomb-making. These services were initially provided by junior elements of the Mukhabarat, the M-14 office (responsible during the Baathist years for assassinations) and the M-21 office (responsible for bombings). Such cells distributed large numbers of suicide vests at caches throughout Iraq from the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, operating in 15 to 20 person 'Tiger Groups'. Acting as trainers, such specialists have created a broad base of bomb-making knowledge in the country. The bomb-makers they trained will never be short of raw materials in Iraq, due to the widespread distribution of munitions across the country. The Baathist component of the insurgent community has also demonstrated a strong grasp of the intelligence required to target critical infrastructure (oil industry and transport systems) at its most critical nodes and to infiltrate government facilities and assassinate government figures. This point was particularly highlighted after the devastating multiple attacks that were carried out in Baghdad's Green Zone against a number of high-value targets in August 2009, including the ministry of foreign affairs. When Maliki visited Syria in August, he asked Damascus to collaborate with Baghdad to detain Iraqi Baathists based in Syria accused of masterminding the attack. Maliki also called for the setting up of an international investigation. He repeated both demands following another two devastating attacks in October in Baghdad that killed 160 Iraqis. At Maliki's insistence, the UN sent the secretary general's political adviser, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, to Baghdad in November to gather evidence pertaining to FRE complicity in the August and October attacks, upon which the UN will decide whether to proceed with further investigations.

Religious Militant            TOP

Sunni extremist

Baathist diehards are difficult to untangle from the second rejectionist strand of the Sunni Arab community, the militant Islamist groups, with many former Baathists having joined militant Islamist movements, or appropriating religious rhetoric to operate within and exploit the radicalised Sunni Arab community. This strand of the resistance has survived the death of senior figures, including that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006, and is likely to continue operations for the foreseeable future. The grouping al-Zarqawi led is the principal militant Islamist grouping in Iraq, a network known as Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers (Tanzim Qaedat Al-Jihad fi Bilad Al-Rafidayn), or Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI's purpose is jihad, the struggle against infidels and apostate Muslims (primarily Shia). The Mujahideen Shura Council of the Mujahideen in Iraq (SCMI) was established in January 2006 as an umbrella movement of militant Islamist groups that sought to confront the "Crusaders and their Rafidi (Shiite) and secularist followers who have seized Baghdad". The movement brought together six militant Islamist groups: AQI; the Jaysh al-Taifa al-Mansura; Ansar al-Tawhid; Al-Ghuraba; Al-Jihad al-Islami; and Al-Ahwal. Using both foreigners and Iraqis, these groups have carried out a range of suicide bombings and assassinations inside Iraq.

Zarqawi's death did not herald a noticeable change in militant Islamist strategy and tactics in Iraq, although the removal of this Jordanian leader provided an opportunity for AQI to present itself as an increasingly indigenous force. The movement has been seeking to apply an Iraqi face to its activities for some time. The current leader of AQI is believed to be Abu Ayyub al-Masri (also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, or 'the immigrant'), who has come under harsh criticism from within AQI for failures of leadership. The virtual Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) is notionally led by an unseen figure known as Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi (also Abu Omar al-Baghdadi), but this figurehead was claimed by US officials to be a fictional Iraqi character developed by al-Masri to hide the foreign-led AQI's control of ISI. There are signs that the al-Baghdadi nom-de-guerre has been attributed to more than one individual since 2006 as ISI has sought to dispel US claims that he is a notional figurehead or an Iraqi actor.

Working alongside, and often together with, AQI are a range of nationalist-religious militant groups. The best known is the Army of the Protectors of the Sunni Traditions (Ansar Al-Sunna). Like other Sunni nationalist-religious groups, this faction is known for its principally Iraqi membership, its strong focus on the sectarian concerns of the Sunni Arabs and its blend of nationalist and radical Islamic themes and objectives. The group has demonstrated advanced terrorist capabilities, both in day-to-day insurgent attacks and in devastating suicide bombings. FRE are likely to play an important role in these kinds of groups. Many indicators also point to the growing status of Ansar al-Sunna, an organisation that has increasingly begun to co-brand, using its old Ansar al-Islam pseudonym.

AQI's increasing alienation

Elements of the broader Al-Qaeda network appear eager for AQI to focus on ends rather than means by adopting objectives that include the intermediate aim of bloodying the MNF, and the long-term aim of expelling them and creating an Islamist state in Iraq. There are strong indicators of growing tension between the Sunni nationalist resistance and militant Islamist factions. The Salafists have been increasingly overt in criticising Sunni nationalists for taking part in the secular political process or security forces, and militant Islamist cells have begun to target senior Sunni community leaders and clerics that support such steps. Sunni nationalist cells such as the 1920 Brigades, the Anuman Brigades and the Islamic Mujaheddin Army have formed their own shura council to co-ordinate protective measures and retaliatory strikes against militant Islamist cells. The militant Islamist effort is becoming increasingly isolated from the Iraqi people and has displayed some loss of operational capability as a result of its loss of local safe havens. The movement has invested considerable effort in seeking to rhetorically defuse its feuding with Sunni Arab tribes. On 28 September 2006, al-Muhajir issued an audio recording offering reconciliation during the month of Ramadan and a chance to "repent" for past sins. The reconciliation effort was given further backing by Sheikh Harith al-Dari, the senior religious authority in the Association of Muslim Scholars. Some tribal confederations such as the al-Bu Baz appear to have accepted the reconciliation as a means of backing away from damaging feuds with formidable jihadist elements and used Ramadan to enforce a break in tit-for-tat killings.

They are increasingly focusing their efforts on cementing their new base in the Sunni triangle areas of the Tigris valley. These comprise Baghdad and the northern provinces of Diyala and Salah al-Din, with smuggling routes principally operating in the northwest from the Rabiya border crossing with Syria to Tall Afar and from there to Mosul. AQI has provided Iraqi insurgent groups operating in this area with specialised support (anti-helicopter capabilities for instance) and otherwise sought to weave itself into the fabric of the mainstream Sunni anti-occupation attacks.

However, residents in these areas appear to be increasingly turning against AQI as generally happened in Anbar after 2005 and in specific locations such as Fallujah and Ramadi in 2004. Residents have been alienated by AQI attempts to bring the population to heel through violent attacks, such as the use of chlorine bombs in populated areas. Local insurgent movements such as the 1920 Brigades have turned against AQI elements in Diyala, and the MNF has established a Diyala Salvation Front to mirror the Anbar Awakening Council of anti-AQI tribes in Anbar. The US offensive into the upper Tigris river valley since early 2007 appears to have dislodged AQI from Diyala and pushed its centre of gravity further up the Tigris to areas such as Balad, Tikrit, Kirkuk and Mosul. The organisation appears to be losing ground in all Sunni areas.

AQI may begin its transition into a true clandestine terrorist network of disparate cells based in Iraqi cities (particularly Kirkuk and Mosul) and utilising remote border crossings, largely cut off from Sunni community support bases and allied movements within Iraq. AQI is likely to attempt to nest itself within the Sunni Arab communities in northern Iraq who are most threatened by Kurdish expansionism. In the latter months of 2007, AQI cadres were increasingly forced to operate out of northern Iraqi cities, as anticipated by many observers, and have focused their efforts on intimidating the Sunni Awakening movements. In 2008, they have gradually been pushed out into remote rural areas where there are fewer civilians to provide tip-offs to the security forces and where the much-reduced AQI cadres can dominate small rural communities. As of mid-2009, Mosul is the only major urban area in which AQI continues to try to hold terrain in order to keep its lines of communication from Syria to Baghdad through the Ninawa province intact.

A substantial drop in the number of civilian and MNF casualties between July and February 2009 further suggests that AQI has been significantly undermined in Iraq. January 2010 saw the death of 135 Iraqis, less than half the previous month, defying predictions of a rise of violence before the March elections. Also in January, the number of MNF troop deaths stood at zero, the lowest since the outbreak of the war in 2003.

Sectarian militias            TOP

Iraq is a land awash with small arms, heavy weapons and explosives. By law, citizens are allowed to own and keep a single assault rifle. The country is crosscut by strong sectarian and tribal factionalism. Under these conditions, it is inevitable that the country will be dotted with sectarian and neighbourhood militias. Elements of local and tribal communities from all sectarian blocs will remain fiercely protective of their local autonomy, as they were under Saddam Hussein's government

In the Shia community, the key armed bodies include the militant wing of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council or SIIC (formerly the Supreme Council for Islamic Resistance in Iraq or SCIRI), the Badr Organisation and Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi. It is increasingly difficult to characterise Shia militias as unitary blocs, particularly in the case of the loose confederation of militias that owe their spiritual allegiance to the martyred Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, the father of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Although SIIC has a highly centralised party apparatus, the Badr Organisation has become an increasingly loosely-knit network of local militias that often serve local power-brokers and engage in freelance criminal and sectarian violence. The discipline that SIIC built during its years in exile has frayed to some extent since the organisation returned to Iraq and absorbed huge numbers of Iraqis into its ranks. In the case of the Jaish al-Mahdi, the organisation was never more than a loose confederation of highly autonomous local militias.

The Sadrist uprising of 2004, although initiated by the leadership cadre of Moqtada al-Sadr, quickly grew beyond the direct control of Sadr's organisation and undermined the loose control he held over the Jaish al-Mahdi, resulting in uprisings with little centralised control. Individual chapters of the Jaish al-Mahdi undertook violent crime, engaged openly in drug dealing and recruitment, striking deals with foreign agents or choosing to honour temporary truces with the Iraqi government and the Multi-National Force according to local needs.

From early 2007, the Baghdad security plan put the Jaish al-Mahdi under considerable pressure, and forced its mainstream militia leaders to maintain a low profile while coalition (and in some cases SIIC) forces rooted out Sadrist death squad and bomb-making personnel. Since mid-2007, Sadr has sought to recentralise and politicise his disparate movement by keeping Jaish al-Mahdi on ceasefire, but his success has been patchy. The movement's hard-core anti-occupation and anti-Sunni elements will likely lay low and return - either from exile in Iran, areas outside Baghdad or from being embedded in Iraqi Army units - with their basic proclivities unchanged. Across the nine southern provinces, Sadrist and SIIC forces contend violently for local control, with SIIC's relative success in holding governorships allowing the use of MNFs to suppress Sadrist groups in local factional fighting.

This situation is approaching a slow-burning Shia civil war, which exploded into widespread violence in March 2008, when Iraqi government forces launched an offensive against the Jaish al-Mahdi in Basra and Baghdad, displacing much of its control across neighbourhoods. Since then, Sadrist militiamen have suffered defeats and evictions in Baghdad (including Sadr City) and in Maysan province, from which many of the Sadrist tribes tend to originate. As of late 2009, the Jaish al-Mahdi have maintained its ceasefire but there is a strong likelihood that Moqtada al-Sadr is using this time to muster resources for a possible campaign in the latter part of the year or to convert the paramilitary force into a social services movement with the aim of maintaining its grassroots popular support - an essential part of in its political reach.

During provincial elections in January 2009, the Sadrists were defeated in a result that indicated the level of popular discontent with Jaish al-Mahdi. Since then, al-Sadr and his associates have been attempting to restore their popular appeal. Consequently, the Sadrists have allied with SIIC for the March parliamentary elections as part of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a move that has defused much of the tension between the groups. Meanwhile, the leader of Badr Brigade, Hadi al-Ameri, is a candidate for the INA, signalling that the Badr may finally have decided to transform itself into a political rather than military entity. Meanwhile, while Moqtada Sadr is now in Qom, Iran continuing his religious studies, a radical faction - Asaib Ahl al-Haq (League of the People of the Truth) - has emerged under one of his former associates, Qais Al-Khazaali, and is backed by what the US military terms special groups (a phrase that is usually taken as referring to Iran). Al-Khazaali was released in January 2010, in exchange for his group's release of British hostage Peter Moore, in December 2009. In February 2010, Asaib Ahl al-Haq kidnapped US contractor Issa Salomi.

Kurdish

In the Kurdish community, militias are deeply embedded safeguards against central government aggression as well as features of the internal power balance between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Although such militias may claim to be folding their troops into central government security forces, individual affiliations remain to their sectarian blocs and the few functional Iraqi National Guard units are little more than thinly veiled sectarian militias. Smaller communities also maintain unofficial militias. For instance, Iraq's Turkoman have developed militia forces with training and support from Turkey. Over 100,000 peshmerga were incorporated formally into the Iraqi security forces by the end of 2008; the remaining 46,000 were incorporated into a Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) force that the federal government will fully subsidise. In 2008 and the first half of 2009, tensions between the Arab and Kurdish blocs were mirrored by stand-offs in disputed areas like Khanaqin and the Khurmala Dome oilfield between the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga forces.

Sunni militias are less formally organised and have not historically been tolerated in the same way as Shia, Kurdish or Turkoman militias due to their lack of affiliation with established Sunni Arab political parties and because of their involvement in anti-coalition activities. Such Sunni militias are likely to exist as long as the community feels itself threatened and disenfranchised and it will be many years before Iraq's Sunni Arabs come to a community-wide acceptance of their demographic and political minority status. Communities reliant on smuggling, such as those abutting the Syrian and Jordanian borders in Anbar province, will continue to resist the extension of power by Baghdad, regardless of whether or not MNF troops are in Iraq.

That said, Sunni militias are increasingly being treated more like Shia and Kurdish militias by the government and US forces, beginning with their role in security operations during the referendum and elections of late 2005. Such militias provide neighbourhood patrols, law enforcement and facility protection (for example petrol stations and other key points) and are gradually being convinced to join the federal security forces. Although reduced levels of anti-coalition attacks have continued in Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala, many Sunni militias have undertaken robust actions against militant Islamist terrorist groups. The drawdown of US forces in Sunni areas through 2008 and 2009 has led to fewer anti-occupation attacks and increased integration into Iraqi Army units and provincial security forces.

US-paid Sunni Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) or 'Sons of Iraq' groups have emerged across central and northern Iraq, and such groups will likely remain inactive as insurgents as long as either the US or Iraqi governments continue to fund them or find them alternative employment. Some elements are being incorporated into the security forces and others have become incubators for nascent Sunni political blocs, which performed strongly in the provincial elections of January 2009. In some areas where such movements threaten Shia control (Diyala, Baghdad), the CLCs have been undercut by government harassment. In other areas, where the federal government backs the Sunni Arabs against Kurdish expansion (Mosul, Kirkuk), the CLCs will be backed. In the south, they have been discouraged, with alternative tribal councils and direct recruitment to the security forces preferred.

The durability of the CLC's commitment to co-operation with the Iraqi state was questioned on 28 March 2008 when the Iraqi Army arrested Adil al-Mashhadani, head of a local Sons of Iraq group in Baghdad, on criminal and terrorism charges. Militiamen loyal to Mashhadani staged a two-day uprising in Baghdad's Fadhil neighbourhood that was put down by the Iraqi and US militaries. According to this US intelligence official, the Iraqi central government was concerned the uprising would spread and other leaders of Sons of Iraq groups would lead their men in violent insurrection once again, and there was relief when the violence did not spread. The ill-fated uprising could be considered confirmation that the civil war between Sunnis and Shias is highly unlikely to recur; not because of any reconciliation process or political settlement - neither of which have happened - but because the Shia victory was definitive and the Sunni militias were crushed.