Iraq’s killer insurgency is not abating

Experts believe the growing impact of regional politics on the insurgency will likely fuel it and even spread it further inside Iraq. Others put forward a simple, albeit disquieting, scenario: so long as US and other foreign troops remain in Iraq, the insurgency will continue.

"It will become more chaotic," said Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm. "It is obvious that the United States is in Iraq to stay. If this is the case, the Shi’ites will likely join the Sunnis in the fight."

The 2,000 mark in US deaths is approaching at a time when Iraqi and US officials are congratulating themselves that a key October 15 constitutional referendum and the start of Saddam Hussein’s trial four days later passed without the bloodshed and destruction they had expected.

They also are upbeat about the growing efficiency and number — 200,000 at present — of Iraq’s security forces, although some US commanders say they need 18 months to two years before they could fight the insurgency unaided. Recent operations in Western Iraq, especially in towns astride the Euphrates River close to the Syrian border, are said to have been effective in disrupting the insurgents’ supply lines and reducing the number of car bombs.

Stepped-up security has forced insurgents in recent weeks to largely abandon using car bombs and resort to indirect fire, such as lobbing mortars from afar, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr has said. Satellite pictures, he claimed, would be used to trace the origin of mortar and rocket attacks, allowing security forces to make pinpoint raids, he said.

"The insurgents are still there," cautioned Maj Gen Rick Lynch, the US military spokesman in Iraq. "They still want to derail the democratic process. They still want to discredit the Iraqi government, so (anti-insurgency) operations continue."

Over the past six months, he said, more than 300 foreign fighters have been captured, while 100 al Qaeda in Iraq members were killed.

Other successes include the detention of 600 insurgents in the two weeks prior to the October 15 vote, said Maj Gen William G Webster, commander of US forces in Baghdad.

However, last week proved to be one of the bloodiest for US troops, with 23 service members killed, many in the restive Anbar province. The latest deaths raised to 1,996 the number of US military personnel who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press Count.

The insurgents are made up of disparate groups of Sunni Arabs, who lost their privileged status under Saddam but whose motives for fighting are nationalist, religious or to regain their perks. They are aided by foreign fighters brought into Iraq by leaders like al Qaeda in Iraq’s Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to participate in a self-styled "holy war," or Jihad.

The foreign contingent, said by US officials to be mostly Arabs, is widely blamed for dozens of devastating suicide bombings targetting Shi’ites and Iraqi security forces.

Iraq’s majority Shi’ites and minority Kurds — the two communities most oppressed under Saddam — have been empowered by the former dictator’s ouster and are cooperating with the Americans.

Their areas, in the south and north, are almost entirely free of the violence raging in regions with significant Sunni Arab populations.

With every landmark event since the beginning of the insurgency — Saddam’s December 2003 capture, the restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty six months later or last January’s historic elections — hopes rose that the insurgency will wind down and eventually die.

But, they have been consistently crushed with a resumption of suicide bombings, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings that now define life in much of Iraq.

Experts contend that the fight could soon begin to take dramatic new turns — more heavily influenced by outside events and possibly bringing new factions into the fight.

For example, they say, if Washington and London continue to put pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, Iraq’s Shi’ite neighbour could be tempted to deflect that pressure by encouraging radical Iraqi Shi’ite factions to stage attacks on US and British forces.

Already, there are signs that Iranian involvement in the insurgency may have begun. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said this month that explosive devices that have killed eight British troops in southern Iraq since May were similar to those used by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Iran, which has close links to Shi’ite political parties in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s coalition government, has denied any involvement.

"The Iranians are instrumental in upping the ante," said Vali Nasr, who lectures on national security affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. "They have been practicing restraint, but this may already have begun to change."