The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq

The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq
Ahmed S. Hashim, PhD.
Center for Naval Warfare Studies
August 15, 2003

From Conventional War to Insurgency

When Operation Iraqi Freedom started on March 19, 2003, very few people expected the Iraqi armed forces to put up much of a fight against vastly better-trained and equipped coalition forces.1 Neither Iraq’s regular army, which was a poorly trained and demoralized force, nor the Republican Guards/Special Republican Guards, which were better trained and better-equipped forces designed both to wage wars and to protect the regime, fought effectively. They simply melted away.2

Instead, what actually took place was an unpleasant but short-lived episode of violent irregular combat initiated by Iraqis. Regime supporters, military personnel out of uniform, and irregular forces such as the Fida‘iyin Saddam ("Saddam's Martyrs") conducted a brief but intense, harassing insurgency in the third week of March 2003 against coalition forces advancing towards Baghdad.3 Iraqi officials vowed before and during the war that they would use any method to fight the coalition.4 Even this bravado was not translated into facts on the ground as the regime failed to carry out an effective insurgency campaign or conducted urban combat in the main cities such as Baghdad. Saddam believed himself betrayed by his officers; this was a charge repeated by his youngest daughter Raghida from exile in Jordan on August 01, 2003.

Expectations of a quagmire vanished with the swift and stunning progress of U.S. forces in the last week of March and first week of April, culminating in the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. President George Bush declared hostilities to be at an end on May 1, 2003. A week later on May 7, senior officers briefed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They were upbeat as they formulated the step-by-step plan for drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq to 30,000 troops by September 2003. The euphoria of liberation was short-lived. By June 2003 central Iraq was in the midst of a low-level, decentralized insurgency, a state of affairs acknowledged by U.S. officials and senior military officers.5

This paper addresses the insurgency that broke out after the official end of hostilities. Specifically, it attempts to do four things. First, it will seek to ascertain the nature of the violence that took place in Iraq after the end of hostilities: is it insurgency, guerilla warfare, or terrorism? Terminology is important. Second, the paper will address the origins, goals, and operational art of the insurgency. Third, it will look at prospects for the insurgency: will it remain decentralized and low-level, characterized by harassing attacks, or transform itself into a national liberation struggle? Fourth, this paper addresses the U.S. response to the insurgency and makes recommendations about how to respond effectively and what it might be done to prevent a full-fledged war of national resistance.

The Power of Terminology: Insurgency, Guerrillas, Terrorists, Partisans?

The term one chooses to define or characterize the ongoing violence in Iraq matters for many reasons; my concern is the power of terminology.

First, the term one chooses to refer to something such as the ongoing violence in Iraq betrays one’s political biases and stance. The Administration’s views are politicized, in that to admit that there is resistance by Iraqis beyond regime supporters is to admit that a wide range of Iraqis are fighting occupation. This is not something that Administration officials wish to hear, given the constant refrain that one of the key goals of the war was the liberation of the Iraqis from an evil dictatorship.

Second, terminology matters because the term one chooses may determine the solution to a problem. If Administration officials continue to believe that the cause of the ongoing violence is solely the former regime, we will fall prey to focusing exclusively on groups or individuals associated with the defunct regime. By rooting them out the violence will cease, so goes the logic. That might not be the case, but it explains why the deaths of ‘Uday and Qusay in July were greeted with euphoria by the Administration and why U.S. forces are relentless in their pursuit of the former Iraqi leader, Saddam.

Third, terminology also matters because if we characterize it incorrectly, we will devise and implement the wrong methods to deal with it. The views of U.S. senior officers who have characterized the insurgency as “classical guerilla warfare” – a position which is at the opposite end of the spectrum from those of senior administration officials -- are overly pessimistic and even more importantly, possibly erroneous in a number of ways as will be discussed below.

The Nature of the Iraqi Insurgency

What is the U.S. facing in Iraq? Politically neutral yet accurate terminology is crucial. The key term here is insurgency, which refers to a violent uprising by a population or segment thereof of a given state against their own government or foreign power in occupation of their country. In this study I use the term “low-level, localized and decentralized insurgency” to describe a situation wherein a myriad number of political groups have engaged in widespread acts of violence in order to disrupt and remove the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The above description of the insurgency in Iraq merits further clarification. To call the ongoing violence in Iraq “low-level” depends in part upon proximity. The insurgency may not seem “low-level” to the U.S. ground troops who have been faced with an average of 12 attacks per day. Still, the attacks are sporadic, the deadly ones few, and many attacks do not end with casualties on either side. In an insurgency, even insurgent attacks that do not succeed (i.e., do not kill soldiers of the opposing side or destroy materiel) are still significant because the insurgent seeks disruption and instability, while the government or the foreign power seeks normality and stability.

The insurgency, as we shall see below, is localized. It is largely confined to one part of the country, the center; and of a particular part of the center. It is not yet national; therefore, it is still not a war of national resistance against a foreign occupation. It is decentralized in that it is being conducted by a large number of groups, many of whom are ideologically different from one another and do not cooperate with one another.

What are its goals? This is a key issue. The insurgents have a series of goals that can be described as “negative” ones that are defined by what they do not want – i.e. the U.S. presence; “reactionary” ones that seek the return of the old order; or gut and nationalist reaction to humiliation and domination by the Other. There is no “positive” goal(s) that is either an articulation of what they do want or a vision of the future.

If the insurgency gathers strength and support and becomes more cohesive and unified, we might see its transformation into a war of national liberation but not necessarily one with sweeping revolutionary goals. A revolutionary insurgency seeks a massive political and socioeconomic transformation in its struggle against the status quo. The Iraqi insurgents have not yet articulated such sweeping goals. Given the myriad number of organizations with different philosophical backgrounds, it is unlikely that they would be able to formulate sweeping and radical goals on which they can all agree.

Finally, what are the methods or means of the insurgency in Iraq? The methods of insurgents are very different from their most likely opponents, the regular armed forces of the political entity they are combating. The former are vastly inferior in size, equipment or weapons to their regular opponent. In order to level the playing field against powerful regular forces, insurgents often believe that they have the right to use any means readily available to them, including terrorism. This however, does not mean that they are terrorists. Insurgencies – whether they are wars of national liberation against a foreign occupation or revolutionary wars against unjust governments – have historically and invariably been associated with the concept and practice of guerilla warfare.

Guerilla warfare as historically understood is a complex and rich form of warfare that has been practiced since time immemorial and continues to be practiced widely at present and about which an enormous amount has been written by historians and practitioners.6

When American strategic analysts, military officers, government officials, and journalists talk or write loosely about guerilla warfare, they almost invariably have in mind the kind of warfare associated with Mao Zedong' campaigns against the Japanese occupiers of China and then against the Chinese Communists' rivals, the Nationalists. They also have in mind the long and protracted wars fought by the Algerians against the French, the Vietnamese first against the French and then against the Americans. These were truly epic struggles, but the kind of insurgency that has taken place in Iraq as of summer 2003 is not of the same stature.7

To call the low-level attacks “classic” guerilla warfare is to describe a situation that has not yet come to pass in Iraq as of mid-Summer 2003. It is not clear that the insurgency, even if it evolves into a genuine war of national resistance, will develop the kind of structure, organization, and discipline associated with the epic guerilla struggles mentioned above. This does not mean, however, that it will not be guerilla warfare. It will of a kind that will most likely witness suicide bombings, massive car bombing campaigns, sabotage, assassinations, and vicious, small-unit urban fighting. It will possibly witness episodic rioting and localized uprisings by the populace. There will be firefights similar to those that have occurred in traditional guerilla wars. But these will be of a smaller scale than in previous conflicts and more in keeping with the firefights that have already occurred in Iraq. Naturally, the small unit assaults on U.S. forces will get more sophisticated and will be carried out by better and better trained groups. Nevertheless, the conflict in Iraq will most likely not witness a steady evolution of the insurgency towards a centralized, cohesive, and disciplined force commanded by a political cadre seeking to form a regular force out of rag-tag insurgents.

Onset of the Insurgency in Iraq

Demise of Sunni Arab Domination

As U.S. forces moved deeper into the Sunni Arab heartland of the country including towns such as Falluja, which is heavily conservative and which suffered from U.S. aerial bombing in both Gulf Wars, it became rapidly clear that there was not going to be a mood of welcome for the Americans from the inhabitants. The eighty-year old domination of the Iraqi state by the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq is over.8 It was the Americans who were responsible for its demise. The identity of the country was built -- with British help -- by the Sunni Arab minority and came to be dominated by them since 1921. The collapse of this dominant status may be of concern to those of members of the elite from the overthrown regime, the Sunni Arab tribes, and also those remaining, secular-minded members of this community.9

Many Sunni Arabs may have resented Saddam’s totalitarian state, but many benefited from its neo-patrimonial characteristics. A neo-patrimonial state is characterized by an extensive patronage network that provides its supporters with material goods and money in return for loyalty. Sunni Arabs also figured prominently among the opposition to Saddam’s murderous regime. For example, Sunni Arabs from the town of Samarra – which also contains Shi‘is and Shi‘i shrines – fell afoul of the regime of Saddam. Many Samarra natives – who had served with distinction in the Ba‘th party and the armed forces – were purged or executed during the course of the three decades of rule by Saddam and his cronies from the rival town of Tikrit, which also benefited materially and economically while Samarra sank further and further into shabbiness.10 Samara’s residents were thus not generally favorably disposed to the former regime, but they are also intensely nationalistic and are not favorably disposed to foreign control over their country.

Sunnis are trying to play a political role in post-Saddam Iraq, as is evident from their participation in the Governing Council set up in July 2003 under the auspices of Ambassador Paul Bremer, the American official running Iraq by means of the Coalition Political Authority. But overall, in the new Iraq there will be a substantial redirection of power and resources away from the Sunni Arabs.11 Not surprisingly, the U.S. it has come for particular opprobrium from this group of the Iraqi population.12 The response of the Sunnis to this historical shift has generally ranged from pragmatism to sullen hostility and passive resistance. But some have decided to take up arms and have mired the U.S. in a small but vicious, low-intensity conflict that has taken a steady toll of human lives, the pace of reconstruction in Iraq, and the credibility of the Administration. This insurgency has definitely been a surprise.

The underlying animus between the U.S. and the Sunnis erupted into the open with the accidental killings of civilians in the heavily Sunni towns of Falluja, Hit, Tikrit, and Samara in early May 2003. The tough and often clumsy response by U.S. troops merely aggravated the animosity between members of the Sunni community and the U.S. forces.13 Not long afterwards firefights began to erupt between Sunni gunmen and U.S. troops.14

Insurgents: Types, Characteristics, and Ideologies

Despite some evidence that the Ba‘thist regime had planned all along on a post-war insurgency after its formal defeat, the insistent claim by U.S. authorities, that the attacks are solely the work of remnants of the former regime is incorrect. Statements have been put out by various organizations claiming credit for the attacks. Based on their respective clandestine statements they seem to be made up of the following groups of nationalist and religious provenance:15

The General Command of the Armed Forces, Resistance and Liberation in Iraq, Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq, and Patriotic Front: These three are most likely composed of former Iraqi military personnel, particularly from the Special Republican Guards, security and intelligence personnel, Ba‘th party members and the paramilitary Fida‘iyin.16 These members of the former regime are not averse to giving their cells Islamic names.

Al ‘Awdah (The Return), Jihaz al-i‘ilam al-siyasi lil hizb al-Ba‘th (Political Media Organ of the Ba‘th Party), Harakat Ra‘s al-‘Afa (Snake's Head Movement): The first is a group that came into prominence in mid-June. It is made up of former security service members and soldiers of the former Iraqi armed forces organized in cells spread throughout cities such as Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi. There are reports that the pro-Saddam elements of the Ba‘th party have actually re-named the party to Al ‘Awdah. 17 The second has described itself as the political and media organ of the Ba‘th party. The third named group is also Ba‘thist and has links to Sunni Arab tribes.

Nasserites: A small group of non-Ba‘thist pan-Arab nationalists of little significance. Their only claim to fame apart from allegedly successful attacks on U.S. forces is their success of making enemies of almost all other Iraqi political groups, whether insurgent or involved in the political process under the auspices of the Coalition Political Authority/

Thuwwar al-‘arak – kata‘ib al-anbar al-musallahah (Iraq’s Revolutionaries – Al-Anbar Armed Brigades): This is an anti-Saddamist nationalist insurgent group based in Al-Anbar governorate.

General Secretariat for the Liberation of Democratic Iraq: This is an anti-Saddam leftist nationalist group which condemns the coalition authority for failing to provide security basic services to the population.

Munazzamat al-alam al-aswad: (Black Banner Organization): This organization’s propaganda seems to indicate that it has nationalist and religious tendencies. It has called for sabotage of oil industry to prevent it from falling to the hands of the West.

Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq: Little is known about this group except that it is an anti-Saddamist and anti-Ba‘thist one which has called upon all Iraqi forces to fight the U.S. occupation.18

National Front for the Liberation of Iraq: This sounds like the name of a secular resistance organization, but it is apparently an organization that incorporated elements of both the regime and religious tendencies because it accepted individuals from the Republican Guards into its ranks. It was also one of the first to appear during the war. It issued its first communiqués in April and actually claimed that it had tried to assassinate Ahmed Chalabi but only succeeded in killing some of his supporters in an attack in Al-Najaf.

Al-Faruq Brigades: This group refers to itself as the military arm of an Islamic resistance organization called the Islamic Movement in Iraq, or Al-Harakah al-Islamiyyah fi al-arak. The Brigades were stood up in early June and might include secular Sunni Arabs and individuals from now defunct organizations of the former regime. The Al-Faruq Brigades have set up small units or “squadrons” which they give Islamic names; squadrons exist for different specialties, e.g. there are reconnaissance squadrons and combat squadrons.

Mujahideen al ta‘ifa al-Mansoura (Mujahideen of the Victorious Sect): This includes non-Iraq Sunni Islamist elements or even Sunni fundamentalist elements of neo-salafi background. Its military arm is known as the Martyr Khattab Brigade.

Kata‘ib al mujahideen fi al-jama‘ah al-salafiyah fi al-‘arak (Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq): This is a Sunni Islamist group which claims as its spiritual mentor the Palestinian Islamist, ‘Abdallah Azzam, who fought with the Afghan Mujahideen with his acolyte, Usama Bin Laden.

Jihad Brigades/Cells: This group emerged in late July 2003 but little is known about it except it has called for guerilla warfare and threatened to execute “spies and traitors,” i.e. those who are seen as collaborating with the U.S. occupation.

Even though one could argue persuasively that the Sunni Arabs have shown a less than welcoming visage to the Americans for the reasons alluded to above, the myriad groups engaging in actual armed action have different ideological motivations from one another for fighting the U.S. presence. We can divide them into three rough groupings:

Regime loyalists who believe that they have no option but to continue fighting and who are also convinced that the U.S. will tire long before them. They are trying to apply the experiences of other guerilla/terrorist organizations - such as the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas to their operations.

Nationalist and patriotic individuals and insurgent groups who resent the U.S. presence and are angered by the U.S. failure to restore law and order, security, and by U.S. operational methods that are seen as deliberately humiliating the Iraqis and their honor.19 These individuals or groups are relying heavily on kinship and tribal ties to provide them with shelter and succor as they plan for and execute their operations.

Islamists who have emerged after decades of suppression by the Ba‘thist regime. Brave though they may be -- and there was considerable evidence of this during the war itself -- many are amateurs; others have proven to have considerable military experience. But they learn quickly and they have the experiences of other Islamist organizations to help along in their learning curve. Mention must be made of the foreign Islamist fighters that have infiltrated into Iraq to fight the U.S. The individuals from these groups come from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, and Chechnya. Some are well-trained and fought well and to the death against U.S. forces during the war itself. Others are simply either middle class or working class young men who left their “meaningless” lives in their respective countries and who have sought to wage a holy war against the U.S. occupation forces.20 It is easy to exaggerate their numbers or importance as some observers in the U.S. have done. Little data is available on these groups in Iraq and as a result there are a number of rumors circulating about them: that they are being funded by charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia; that they have sought to terrorize Shi‘i residents of Al-Sadr City; and that they have been responsible for some of the deadly hit and run attacks on U.S. troops in central Iraq. They have clashed with Shi‘i militia groups and if such clashes increase in the coming months they are bound to cause tensions between the Sunni and Shi‘i communities. However, apparently those that are Arab have managed to acquire Iraqi IDs without problem and have integrated themselves into Sunni society despite having noticeably different accents. U.S. intelligence and military forces have not been able to pick up on this because of the paucity of Arabic language speakers within their ranks.

Many of these groups have even eschewed contact with one another because of mutual ideological hostility. For example, the kata‘ib al-mujahideen refer to the personnel of the former regime as “soldiers of tyranny and the devils of darkness” who have handed “over this Muslim country to their American masters.”21 Many of the individuals who say that they are fighting the U.S. presence for patriotic or nationalistic reasons have expressed no desire to see the return of the previous system. For example, one of the insurgent groups issued a statement deriding one of Saddam’s taped messages:

Yesterday, through their media outlets the tyrant and his henchmen announced from the holes in which they are stuck that he is the one behind the resistance and that the men carrying out this resistance are loyal and linked to him. The one behind the mass graves and executions wants to employ the struggle of our people who reject the occupation, hegemony, and guardianship to his own benefit and the benefit of his regime.22

Others actively avoid co-ordination or interaction with like-minded insurgent groups because such contact heightens the chances of penetration and destruction by U.S. forces. Of those that we know about, such as supporters of the former regime, it seems that they have organized themselves into small, cellular units each of 5-6 members and because U.S. forces do not enter mosques they are likely to use places of worship for planning operations and for storing weapons and supplies.23 In all of this we must not forget that a wide variety of disgruntled individuals and members of organized crime groups – which are proliferating in the country – may have participated in the violence.24

Insurgent Goals, Operational Art, and Tactics

Nonetheless, even if many of these groups are not ideological fellow-travelers, their main goals are to hamper the pace or extent of reconstruction, to prevent Iraqis from working with the occupation authorities, to encourage U.S. forces to undertake excessive, punitive, counter-insurgency raids that disrupt the lives of ordinary Iraqis including the killing of civilians, and to raise the costs of the U.S. presence to such a level that the Washington would have to question its commitment and determination to stay in Iraq. These groups know that they are even less capable of standing up to the full-might of U.S. forces than was Ba‘thist Iraq, and they will avoid the misplaced heroics of the war days when hundreds of lightly-armed irregular forces were slaughtered rushing headlong into firepower-heavy U.S. forces. Instead, the operational art of these groups at this stage of the strategic defensive for them has included the following:

Lone Sniper Attacks: have been undertaken by well-trained former members of the Iraqi commando/special forces and outsiders. One insurgent leader, nicknamed Abu Rifai, stated that this is a specialty of his small group. Snipers are a nuisance rather than a major threat to the integrity of U.S. forces. However, the tactic causes considerable strain among individual soldiers faced with the threat of unseen death. Furthermore, even though snipers are universally loathed in all armies, they have a certain mystique and mythic qualities that catch people’s imagination. While it is difficult to separate fact from myth, a Baghdad-based Iraqi sniper code-named “The Hunter,” who has allegedly been responsible for the death of U.S. personnel has become a hero among the population.

Roadside bomb: operations appeared in July 2003 when insurgents began to use roadside bombs detonated by remote control.25 The use of roadside bombs may be a tactic that has been adopted from Hizballah who have used them to great effect in Lebanon against Israeli occupation forces.

Opportunistic grenade and shooting attacks: have taken place against lightly-armed soldiers on patrol or off-duty.

Ambushes of soft-skinned vehicles and military columns: have been undertaken by small units and so far such attacks have proven to be the most sophisticated undertaken by the insurgents.26

Attacks on civilian members of the coalition authorities: have been few but since they represent a soft target more could be expected.

Threats to target foreigners and foreign companies working with the occupation authorities in Iraq: have increased as insurgent groups have promised to attack any individual or company, including those from Jordan and the Gulf Arab countries, working with the U.S. in Iraq. Insurgent groups have issues threats to attack the Vinnell Corporation -- and anybody associated or working with it -- which has been assigned the twin tasks of standing up and training the new Iraqi military.27

Threats against Iraqis “collaborating” with the occupation authorities: have been carried out against a number of Iraqi technocrats and professionals who have been killed. In early July 2003 the first Iraqi officials fell victim to professional assassins. Dr ‘Abdul Amin, the chief tax collector under the Ba‘th regime and who had decided to work with the coalition, was executed in broad daylight in a Baghdad market by professional hit-men and Dr. Haifa Aziz Daoud, Baghdad's chief electrical engineer, was killed at home.28 One of the best-known outrages was the killing, in early July of Iraqi police officers who had just completed a U.S. training course.

Sabotage of critical infrastructure: by insurgent groups who have attacked and damaged/destroyed electrical power stations, liquid natural gas plants, and oil installations.29 It should, however, be noted, that there are three types of groups that have attacked such critical infrastructure: looters who may want something of value to use or sell; organized criminals who wish to resell useable equipment; and politically-inspired insurgents whose attacks keep the occupation authorities from translating their promise of reconstruction into fact.

These organized, hit-and-run attacks by insurgents are not under any centralized command and control. The attacks on U.S. forces have been undertaken by a range of groups ranging from rank amateurs, whose inability to handle weapons was much in evidence during their attacks, to more serious and threatening groups whose attacks indicate quasi-professional levels of planning and execution.30 The former individuals seem to have little or no military training. Their attacks were often carried out with no prior reconnaissance, and they were almost invariably beaten off with no casualties suffered by the U.S. forces. They often carried out operations at night in order to enhance their chances of getting away, but night operations are difficult even for the best-trained forces.

Attacks by more professional groups also began as somewhat amateurish affairs but the groups have improved considerably over the course of July. They carry out prior reconnaissance and deliberately seek out the softest targets possible. These groups have used individuals to attack targets of opportunity or small units of 5-10 men to attack designated targets such as convoys. They have proven capable of conducting daylight operations and of executing simultaneous and coordinated operations against U.S. columns or convoys. These groups are currently at the level of what can be called the strategic defensive where they are learning, organizing, recruiting, and adapting to U.S. tactics and modus operandi.

The Prospects for the Insurgency

Support within the Sunni Community

As of mid-August 2003, the insurgency in central Iraq constitutes violent, armed action by a minority group stemming from a minority of the total population of the country. Two issues need to be addressed here. First, does the insurgency have a tacit support of a large segment of this ethnic minority? If so, why and how does it manifest itself? If there is growing support for the insurgency among the population of the center, the Sunni Arab minority, the insurgency will still be limited unless it becomes more national in scope. This raises the second issue: might Shi‘is become involved in active opposition to the U.S. presence?

The insurgency in the center might be benefiting from a potential fusion between nationalist and Islamist sentiments among Sunnis, who should not be discounted given the noticeable rise of Islamist sentiments among the Sunni Arab population. There has been a steady, if not surprising, rise of political Islam among the Sunni Arabs. American policy has been so consumed with post-war, superficial understanding of the Shi‘is of Iraq that Sunni-derived political activism did not even appear on the radar screen. However, both mainstream and extremist Islamist movements may be emerging in the country. The reasons why will require detailed sociological analyses in the coming months, but we can provide tentative answers at this juncture to account for their re-emergence.

First, Sunni Islamic activism has a longstanding but not particularly deep history in Iraq.31 However, the constituency is there among very conservative Sunni Arabs living within the Sunni triangle bounded by Baghdad Ramadi and Mosul in the north. The ostensible secularism of the Ba‘thist regime hindered the ability of Sunni Islamist movements to play a role in the political process and the cashiering of Sunni Arab officers with ties to Sunni political movements further removed such groups from the center of power.

However, despite its original allegiance to militant secularism, Saddam's regime itself began to promote the re-islamization of Iraqi society over the past ten years to buttress its legitimacy. This was symbolized by a number of religious policies undertaken with the official sanction of the regime over the course of the past four years. In 1999, the regime launched al hamla al-imaniyah or Enhancement of Islamic Faith campaign that saw the restriction of drinking and gambling establishments, the narrowing of secular practices, the promotion of religious education, and the propagation of religious programming in the media. The regime even allowed Sunni clerics to politicize their sermons -- so long as they focused their ire on the forces that kept Iraq under debilitating sanctions. While the regime focused mainly on reviving religion among the minority Sunni Arab population, many Sunni Iraqis saw the regime’s strategy as a move from “infidelity to hypocrisy” as was described by a senior Sunni Islamist, Dr. ‘Usamah al-Tikriti. But this state re-islamization provided the cover for Sunnis to show their faith somewhat more openly than before. Naturally, as was its wont the regime re-interpreted its ideology to account for its "embrace" of religion.32

Second, the sanctions regime that has been in existence since 1991 promoted the return to religion within the Iraqi population. The destruction of the Iraqi middle class, the collapse of the secular educational system, the rise of illiteracy, and growth of despair and anomie have resulted in large numbers of Iraqis seeking succor in religion.33 Fourthly, many Iraqis, rightly or wrongly, see the West equally as culpable as Saddam foe the misery of the country.

In contrast with the Shi‘i groups on whom we have a relative wealth of detail, we have little knowledge on what Sunni Islamist groups have re-emerged in Iraq. However, from what little that can be gleaned from both Arabic and English sources, I have concluded that we can tentatively divide them into three groups. While the first two have decided to engage in legitimate political activity for the time being, it is not far-fetched to assume that their members might choose to follow the path of violent resistance.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which is making halting and tentative steps to re-enter the Iraqi political arena, first appeared in Iraq among its Sunni Arab and Kurdish population in the late 1940s. A venerable Sunni political party, the MB has had a strong presence in many Arab countries, including Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Jordan. In Iraq, its presence has been weak. Much of this has to do with the adherence of many Sunnis to secular ideologies of a nationalist hue and to the Ba‘thist regime’s crackdown over the years which forced the party underground. Nonetheless, the MB continued to propagate its values among Sunni Iraqis through secret sermons in mosques and the smuggling of literature into Iraq from neighboring countries.

The shadowy Iraqi Islamic Party has ensconced itself in the northern, ethnically mixed but Sunni-dominated city of Mosul (the largest Iraqi town with the lowest percentage of Shi‘is). In 1960 the Iraqi branch of the MB applied for a license to set up a political party under the name of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP). It went into decline following the seizure of power by the Ba‘thists but re-emerged in the early 1990s.

However, most interesting here is the current relationship between the MB and IIP. It is not clear whether the IIP is the Iraqi offshoot of the MB or is a separate party that is strongly tied to and allied with the MB. When asked whether the MB has begun to make a political impact in post-Saddam Iraq, a senior MB official, Dr. Usama al-Tikriti, responded, “We are now practicing political work along with others through the Iraqi Islamic Party. We are actively participating in the Islamic Party since it is a system for political work in Iraq and has more than 90 branches throughout Iraq.”34 When the MB official was asked whether the IIP was a political front for the MB, he responded, “We do not actually say that, because the Muslim Brothers and others also participate in the Islamic Party.”35

These ambiguous statements do not clarify the relationship between the two entities, and only the stabilization of the political situation in Iraq in the coming months will uncover the nature of the relationship between them. But the IIP does have a political manifesto that calls for the establishment of an Islamic state by peaceful means.36 There are indications that it is establishing cells in the central and the northwestern parts of the country, but it is not known whether these are political cells or armed cells.

Ominous is the austere form of Islam associated with violent Salafi groups that seek to “reform” Islam. Reform in this context is different from the reform associated with Christianity. In Islam the reform sought by Salafis is the ridding of Islam of syncretism and innovations acquired over the centuries; it is a quest to return to the pristine Islamic community of the forefathers (Arabic singular salaf means a forefather, hence al-Salafiyya movement and its adherents, the Salafis) who lived with Prophet Muhammad. The Salafis seem to be making headway in Iraq and gaining adherents, even among Shi‘is.37 This is, of course, distinct from the influx of Arab fighters of Salafi beliefs that have entered the country. But the latter have experience to impart to their Iraqi compatriots who have expressed Salafi beliefs.

Dynamics of Conflict with the Sunni and Shi‘i Communities

The separate Sunni and Shi‘i antagonism towards the U.S. presence might continue along two distinct, non-national lines. On the other hand, we might see the emergence of a united approach that downplays Sunni-Shi‘i differences and formulates opposition on the basis of a universalistic Muslim antagonism towards “infidel” occupation of the country.

The Abu Hanifa Mosque Paradigm:

The first possibility is represented by what I call the Abu Hanifa Mosque versus the Al Mohsen Mosque paradigm. Abu Hanifa Mosque is a Sunni place of worship in the Adhamiya district where shootouts have occurred between U.S. troops and Iraqis literally on the mosque’s doorsteps.38 Abu Hanifa has been the site of fiery anti-American sermons by Imams during Friday prayers. On June 6, 2003, Imam Mu‘ayad al-Ubaidi delivered a fierce critique of the U.S. that was wholeheartedly endorsed by his flock:

There are only two powers now in the world. One is America, which is tyrannical and oppressive. The other is a warrior who has not yet been awakened from his slumber, and that warrior is Islam. Our brave Muslim Iraqi people, who care about their honor and their country, refuse all manner of occupation… May God help reverse the evil, so that the evil ones slaughter themselves with their own hands.39

For the Sunni Arabs and Sunni Islamists at both the local and national levels, the U.S. presence is an unmitigated evil, as I have tried to explain above. Sermons by most Sunni clerics have not been complaints about the lack of security and failures of reconstruction to date, but more about the pillage of Iraq by the foreigners. The depth of feelings of this opposition stems from four things: the state of chaos and anarchy in Iraq, the existence of an intense sense of Arab nationalism, a revival of religious fervor, and the anger felt by Sunnis over what they have lost in Iraq.40 Many Sunni Arabs are convinced that the U.S. is there to obliterate Iraq’s identity and turn it into an economic colony. Some have chosen to confront alleged U.S. machinations politically. Others, as we have shown above have chosen the route of insurgency.

The Shi‘i populace and clerics have shown a more subtle approach. At the national level Shi‘i clerics have expressed joy that the oppressive Saddam regime is gone but are ambivalent about the U.S. presence in Iraq. Most Shi‘i political groups were happy that the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown; they are not happy that the Americans did it. The statements of senior Shi‘i clerics can essentially be summed up as “thank you for getting rid of Saddam; now, please go!”’41 For Shi‘is, the U.S. presence represents both opportunity and constraint. The U.S. overthrew their oppressor when they themselves never could, but that presence now complicates the Shi‘i role in determining the post-Saddam future.

The Al Mohsen Mosque Paradigm:

We can contrast the sermons of Al Mohsen Mosque in Al Sadr City with those of Abu Hanifa.

At the local level, the sermons of Shi‘i clerics have been more about the restoration of law and order and of basic services to the destitute. For the Shi‘i clerics of Al Sadr there is no American presence to act as a lightning rod for discontent since American patrols do not venture frequently or regularly into the neighborhood. The American presence has not become unduly oppressive at the local levels in the Shi‘i communities, whereas for the Sunnis it is oppressive at both the local and national levels. But the Shi‘i clerics do not only complain they have taken action. The American inability to restore law and order and basic services has redounded to the advantage of the Shi‘i clerics from the Hawza, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Al-Sadriyyun, who have established effective, informal networks of local governance and resource allocation in cities where they have established their respective presence. These clerical networks provide the distribution of food and medical supplies, guard important buildings such as clinics and hospitals, dispense justice, and collect looted goods that have been returned.42

We also have to understand how Sunni and Shi‘i have responded to the powers that be over time. Throughout their history, Sunnis have developed a political theory and practice of legitimately accepting oppressive government, since the alternative, anarchy (or the Sunni version of Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature) is far worse. Also, Sunnis both as rulers and ruled have been long accustomed to being top dog throughout their history, whether in Iraq or elsewhere in the Islamic world, and as such do not so readily adjust to loss of power and privileges. If the ‘infidel’ is responsible, the call to jihad or holy war is not far away.

As a minority in most Muslim countries through the centuries, Shi‘is, have developed a more nuanced and sophisticated approach to power relationships. Since the “disappearance” of the Twelfth Imam, temporal power for the Twelver Shi‘is (the majority in both Iraq and Iran) has been illegitimate. Furthermore, power was often in the hands of their tormentors, the Sunnis, particularly in Iraq. Having been disempowered for much of their history, Shi‘is have learned to calculate prudently the correlation of forces between them and the powers that be, to develop their own parallel social and political networks, and to be more patient in formulating a response to perceived oppression. To put it simplistically, Sunnis are more likely to rebel; Shi‘is are more careful before they engage in rebellion.

These divergent Sunni and Shi‘i approaches to the reality of power in post-Saddam Iraq provide the U.S. with a greater margin of political maneuvering than if the Sunnis and Shi‘is transcend their differing responses. Together, they might adopt a universal program that focuses on what disturbs both communities at the national level, the presence of the “infidel,” and then worry later about the distribution of resources within society. While there have been joint Sunni-Shi‘i marches against the occupation as of mid-2003, there has been little overt sympathy among the Shi‘is for the Sunnis that have clashed with U.S. forces in the Iraqi heartland. This stems from the belief among the Shi‘is that the current Sunni low-level insurgency has not yet managed to transform itself from a struggle by those who wish to recover the old order or its privileges to a truly national struggle against the occupier. This is why the majority of Shi‘is, including the clerics resisted calls in May and June by exuberant and more militant younger Shi‘is who have suggested that Fallujah, a bastion of Sunni resistance, should become a model for Shi‘i cities in the south, or that suicide attacks should be launched against the coalition forces.43

Should Shi‘is ever calculate that there would be more to gain by active, even violent opposition to the American presence in Iraq, then things could get ugly. Ominous signs of discontent among Shi‘is began to manifest themselves in July because of the continued lack of law and order, the decision to ignore Iraqi political desires, and the allegedly humiliating manner in which coalition forces treated Iraqi civilians.44 The kind of pressure that the senior clerical establishment of the Hawza had come under from more radical clerics like Muqtada, as was detailed above, had threatened by July to undermine the spiritual authority of the Hawza. The potential for a gap to grow between the Hawza and its “flock” may have accounted for Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani’s fatwa stating that the “occupation officials do not enjoy the authority” to hand-pick a governing council of 30 Iraqis that would help write the new Iraqi constitution.45

Should Sunni resistance to and Shi‘i distaste for the presence of the U.S. in Iraq coalesce into a nationalist opposition, the paradigm here would be the nationalist rebellion of 1920 that united Sunni and Shi‘i against the British invaders.46 What should be worrisome from the American perspective is the growing coincidence between Sunni and Shi‘i nationalist views concerning the coming “pillage” and sale of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies. The more we see of a growing nationalist backlash followed by violence, the more likely we are to see the kind of quagmire that journalistic accounts have prematurely discussed since the eruption of fighting in the central Sunni belt.

Even though the rugged and mountainous Kurdish north is the best place to conduct guerilla warfare of the type pursued by the Peshmergas, or Kurdish guerillas, I do not expect the Kurds to join in such an insurgency. They owe a great deal to the U.S. for the creation and protection of the enclave over the past ten years. Should a wider insurgency erupt, the Kurds will stand by and watch, will deny sanctuary to Arab insurgents, and may even help the U.S. They will work assiduously for their own state.

Given the disparate groups that would be involved a nation-wide insurgency (except in the Kurdish north), it would most likely continue to remain decentralized and focus on throwing out the occupiers in the name of nationalism and religion. Indeed, one of the key characteristics of a truly nationalist insurgency is for the insurgent leadership is to select an “ideology that has appeal to important sectors of society in order to win their support… the insurgency’s future plans must be vague enough for broad appeal and specific enough to address important issues.”47

The operational learning curve for a nation-wide insurgency may vary greatly in speed. We should not forget the fact that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Al-Da‘wa -- the two main Shi‘i parties or movements -- have their own armed militias held in reserve. Both the Badr Brigade of SCIRI and Al-Da‘wa armed cells have considerable experience in conducting insurgency warfare. The latter group was decimated by the forces of Saddam in the early 1980s yet continued to conduct several assassination attempts against regime officials well into the 1980s.48 Moreover, given its links with one of the world's most potent guerilla/terrorist organizations, Hizballah, it can be safely assumed that its members have begun to learn new tricks of the trade. Another potent group that bears watching is Iraqi Hizballah, a small but well-trained and well-disciplined group of fighters whose leader Karim Mahoud al-Muhammadawi waged a long insurgency against the regime of Saddam.

Should the pessimistic scenario of a nation-wide but largely decentralized resistance take shape in the coming months, the U.S. might then face horrific, violent opposition by thoroughly disgruntled Sunnis and Shi‘is. This would be a war of national liberation, and some aspects of it may come to approximate guerilla warfare as historically understood.49

The U.S. Response: Actual and Recommended

How has the U.S. responded to this insurgency both at the political and operational levels, and how should it respond to prevent the low-intensity conflict or “hydra-headed decentralized insurgency” from becoming a war of national resistance?50

Politically, the U.S. has failed to date to ameliorate or relieve the cause of this insurgency, namely the American reconstruction of Iraq. There is no legitimate government; it behooves the Coalition Provisional Authority to accept the fact that most Iraqis do not see the Governing Council as legitimate. They know that the true power is the CPA. The legitimacy of the CPA, however, is that of an occupier and cannot last long. The CPA would have succeeded in degrading the impact of ill-will and of the insurgency if it had restored law and order, had not implemented certain policies that either humiliated Iraqis or added to the level of unemployment, and had begun an effective reconstruction of the country.

The U.S. continues to focus excessively on rooting out the remnants of the former regime, hence the obsessive focus on the top leadership of the regime, particularly Saddam and his two sons. The deaths of ‘Uday and Qusay in Mosul in late July 2003 at the hands of U.S. forces was greeted with euphoria by the Administration, which has been buffeted by a litany of bad news out of Iraq or about the Iraq war. However, following the deaths of the two sons, violence spiked. This led to the emergence of two distinct interpretations based on the facts.

The first interpretation casts considerable doubt on the importance of the two sons in the ongoing insurgency. Neither of the two brothers was an accomplished insurgent or a budding guerilla leader. ‘Uday was a playboy and a pathological murderer who inspired fear and loathing not loyalty. Qusay, who was supposedly groomed by his father to become the quintessential security man and to survive and thrive in an atmosphere of conspiratorial politics, failed to master his fathers lessons and was caught traveling with his brother and a teenage son.

The second interpretation argues that both sons had become more serious as the war loomed and had begun to focus on their duties to defend the regime. Indeed, to cite Dr. Samuel Johnson, nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the imminent prospect of the hangman. In line with this second interpretation, the two sons played roles in planning and executing the attacks by Iraqi irregular forces during the war itself. After all, ‘Uday did build up the Fida‘iyin. As the regime collapsed, stories have emerged that the two sons helped formulate the plans for the post-war insurgency by regime supporters.

One is led to conclude that the brothers seemed to be on the run rather than moving about to organize attacks. If anybody within the top leadership is playing a role in directing or orchestrating the attacks by regime supporters it would have to be Saddam himself or his old revolutionary supporters from the days of clandestine politics. Removing Saddam and his loyalists would deflate those who might be fighting for the former regime, but it still would not stop those who those who are fighting the U.S. presence under the banner of nationalism or religion.

However, if the attacks that have occurred in Iraq over the course of spring and summer of 2003 are more than attacks by the remnants of the regime, they are definitely less than classic guerilla warfare. Iraq has not entered the stage of guerilla warfare. Nevertheless, advantage in war requires being a step or more ahead of one's foe, so it is imperative that the U.S. prepare actively for the prospect of an uglier guerilla war precisely in order to head it off and defeat it should it break out.

The elimination of Saddam’s sons, of Saddam himself, and of regime fighters in the coming weeks may get rid of one set of insurgents, but it opens the way for the consolidation of a group whose combat against U.S. forces has nothing to do with trying to bring back the ancient regime. The irony here is that as we win against one group we may be opening the field for the rivals of the eliminated group to take the lead in the insurgency against the U.S. The elimination of Saddam and his dynasty may demoralize pro-regime insurgents but may actually embolden anti-regime and anti-U.S. insurgents who may have held back in the past few weeks because of the barely submerged fears that the regime could come back.

The U.S. military has conducted missions (operations and sweeps) to deal with the attacks. These are necessary, but the existence of deep, cultural misunderstandings and the pervasive U.S. tendency to view peace-keeping and policing with disdain in favor of a “robust” (force protection) approach ends up with the missions invariably managing to enlarge the circle of alienated people.51 An alienated populace provides tacit or active support for insurgents and also a ready supply of recruits. The modus operandi of U.S. troops, who are tired and increasingly demoralized by almost non-stop combat since March, contributes to alienating the populace, who in turn either provide succor and assistance to the insurgents or become insurgents themselves. A graphic example is provided in a story in The Village Voice which got its information from the very reliable organization, Amnesty International:

The liberators are unable to provide safety to the populace even from their own soldiers.

Consider the story of little Mohammad al-Kubaisi, as Amnesty International described it last week. On June 26, Mohammad was carrying the family bedding up to the roof, where they slept each night. As he climbed, Mohammad saw American soldiers searching nearby houses. He stopped to watch. Across the street, an American soldier spotted the boy and raised his gun. An Iraqi standing near the soldier said something about “that baby.” But the soldier said, “No baby,” and shot the boy.

When his mother heard Mohammad had been hit, she raced home and saw that he was still alive and scooped him up, but the American soldiers searching the house “kicked here aside,” offering no medical treatment. Two neighbors rushed the boy to the hospital. But the road was blocked by an American tank, and when one of the neighbors tried to explain to an interpreter what was going on, the soldiers handcuffed them behind their back and threw them face down on the ground. After 15 minutes, the Iraqis were allowed to get up and told to go home because the curfew had begun. It was too late for little Muhammad. He had died.

So goes the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraq.52

The vicious cycle is worsened when both Iraqis and Americans begin to view each other as merciless and brutal savages and then to act on these perceptions and succeed in the infliction of atrocities that further widens the gap.53 The type of U.S. force structure in Iraq – heavy armored and mechanized units and the psychological disposition of these forces which have been in Iraq for months is simply not conducive to the successful waging of counter-insurgency warfare.54

Recommendations:

The U.S. must be prepared to see the insurgency as something more than acts of violence by regime supporters but as of summer 2003 as something less than a classic guerilla war. Fighting this type of war is messy; as T.E. Lawrence put it: it is like trying to eat soup with a fork.

Insurgency or guerilla warfare cannot be dealt alone by military means. The U.S. must devise a political, economic, and military plan first to head off and if that is not possible to fight a guerilla war successfully.

We must never lose sight of the ultimate goal if the situation gets messier: our goal is to ensure the emergence of a politically stable, democratic and reconstructed Iraq. We must restore law and order and basic services, and give the Iraqis the substance not the appearance of greater political freedom and sovereignty. In this context, the military part of the counter-insurgency or counter-guerilla war must always be subordinated to this goal. We cannot destroy the country in order to save it.

We must rid ourselves of pervasive cultural arrogance and ignorance. These two factors promote the tendency to simplistic approaches that are prone to failure operationally yet are successful in perpetuating mutual incomprehension and institutionalization of violence and demonic images.

We must be wary of simple formulaic approaches and attempts to implement the tried and tired strategies of the past from other counter-insurgency campaigns: the standing up of an Iraqi militia or armed force to help in the counter-insurgency could backfire. We need to ask ourselves if the members of the proposed force will have the motivation to take on their tasks, given the fact that many are joining solely because of monetary incentives. Might an unmotivated force become a source of intelligence and arms for the insurgents?

Citation and quotation permissible if you please contact the author:

Ahmed S. Hashim, PhD.

Professor of Strategic Studies

Center for Naval Warfare Studies

Strategic Studies Department

Naval War College

Newport, RI 02841

1 (401) 841-6981

hashima@nwc.navy.mil

Author’s Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Naval War College or the US Departments of the Navy or Defense. This paper does not utilize classified information and is based exclusively on open source information and interviews.

MEI’s Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Perspective are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.

Author:

Ahmed Hashim, PhD., is Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI. He specializes in Middle Eastern and South Asian strategic issues. He also focuses on Asymmetric Warfare, the Revolution in Military Affairs, Terrorism, and Non-Proliferation. He studied at Warwick University, where he obtained a B.S in Political Science and International Relations, and MIT where he obtained an M.Sc and PhD. in Political Science. His most recent papers are "The World According to Usama Bin Laden," Naval War College Review, Winter 2001; and "Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power," Middle East Journal, Winter 2003.

Editor:

David Chambers is the director of programs at the Middle East Institute.

FOOTNOTES

1
On the Special Republican Guards see Vernon Loeb, "Special Republican Guard: Iraq's loyal and formidable force," International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2002 (accessed on-line).

2

The Iraqi military has generated a considerable amount of literature over the past decade because of its involvement in three major wars since 1980. Despite its extensive combat experience over the course of the last twenty years, the Iraqi military has not been effective for a wide variety of reasons, many of them having to do with the political culture of the country under the Ba‘thist regime. After 1991 the army deteriorated further and the relationship between it and Saddam worsened considerably. For more details see, inter alia, John Antal, "Iraq's Mailed Fist," Infantry, January-February 1991, pp.27-30; Ahmed S. Hashim, "Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power, Middle East Journal, Winter 2003, pp.9-41; Matthew Hurley, "Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Air Power: Just Having An Air Force Isn‘t Enough," http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/hurley.html; Kenneth Pollack, Arabs At War, Kenneth Pollack, The Threatening Storm,

3

See John Kifner, “Resistance on ‘every inch’ of road to Baghdad,” International Herald Tribune, March 28, 2003 (accessed on-line); “U.S. Troops Confront Iraqi reistance,” USA Today, March 23, 2003 (accessed on-line); Keith Richburg, “Move on Basra Met by Strong Iraqi Resistance,” Washington Post, March 23, 2003, p.A19; Brendan O’Neill, “The road to Basra,” at http://www.spiked-online.com.

4

See Patrick Tyler, "Iraq Vows to Use "Any Method" Against Foe," New York Times, March 30, 2003 (accessed on-line).

5

“Organisierter Widerstand gegen die USA” (Organized Resistance to the U.S.A.), Neue Zurcher Zeitung, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line).

6

See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp.479-483; Mao Zedong, On Guerilla Warfare, at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerilla-warfare/index.htm; T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, London: Cape, 1935, pp.188-196.

7

The most detailed analysis of guerilla wars is to be found in Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerilla in History, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994. The book contains extremely detailed analyses of the Maoist, Vietnamese and Algerian guerilla wars; other excellent analyses include Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare in Theory and Practice, New York: Lyle Stuart, 1965; Walter Lacqueur, Guerilla,

8

We do not need to recap this history here, but the following works provide analyses of Sunni Arab-dominated state formation in Iraq from 1921 to the present: Hanna Batatu, Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Charles Tripp, A History of Modern Iraq, Pierre-Jean Luizard, La question irakienne.

9

See Neil MacFarquhar, “Iraq’s Anxious Sunnis Seek Security in the New Order,” New York Times, August 10, 2003.

10

For brief discussions of the impact of patronage in the town of Tirkrit see Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Tikrit, Hussein Still Stands Tall,” Washington Post, April 29, 2003, p.29; Scott Calvert, “In Hussein’s town, a day now like any other,” Baltimore Sun, April 29, 2003 (accessed on-line).

11

On the neo-patrimonial nature of the Ba‘thist regime see Faleh Abdul Jabbar, “Al dawlah wa al-mujtama fi al ‘arak: nizam shamuli jaded fi haqabat al-afwal” (State and Society in Iraq: Neo-totalitarianism in twilight of Totalitarianism) The Jurist, Vol.1, Issue No.6, October 2001, pp.35-45.

12

See Anthony Shadid, "Iraq's Once-Privileged Sunnis Increasingly See U.S. As Enemy," Washington Post, June 01, 2003, p.1; Patrick Tyler, "Troops Attacked In Baghdad In Fresh Signs of Resistance," New York Times, June 02, 2003, p.1.

13

See Michael Slackman, “U.S. Operation Yields Fury In Central Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line).

14

See Anthony Shadid, “In Searching Homes, U.S. Troops Crossed The Threshold of Unrest,” Washington Post, May 30, 2003, p.1.

15

This is by no means all the groups. I have listed only the ones that I have managed to get some information on; and even then the information is sparse. I did a thorough search of the media in English, Arabic, French, and German to get information on the groups; their communiqués were analyzed in detail to ascertain their ideological backgrounds.

16

For a similar assessment by an Iraqi observer who was on the ground in Iraq see Faleh A. Jabar, “The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq,” Middle East Report, No.227, Summer 2003, p.18.

17

For details of Al Awdah see Daniel Williams, “Attacks in Iraq Traced to Network,” Washington Post, June 22, 2003, p.A01.

18

"Iraqi group formed to resist coalition," United Press International, May 29, 2003.

19

See Larry Kaplow, “Community Shields Iraqi Insurgents,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 19, 2003 (accessed on-line).

20

Ibid.

21

Quoted in Muhammad al-Shafi‘i, “A New Fundamentalist Group Threatens To Intensify Operations Against US Troops in Iraq,” Al Sharq al-Awsat, June 22, 2003 in FBIS-NESA, June 22, 2003 (accessed on-line).

22

“Unknown Group Establishes a Truce With US Forces,” Al-Zaman (Arabic) July 16, 2003, p.01 translated in FBIS-NES, July 16, 2003 (accessed on-line).

23

For a chilling interview with an insurgent fighter who gave some details of the insurgents’ modus operandi see Mohammad Bazzi, “A Promise to Fight On,” Newsday, July 10, 2003 (accessed on-line).

24

Jonathan Steele and Michael Howard, “U.S. confused by Iraq’s quiet war,” The Guardian, July 17 2003, (accessed on-line).

25

Steven Hurst, “Iraqi insurgents turn to roadside bombs,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 21, 2003 (accessed on-line).

26

For details on these kinds of attacks in late June-early July see Edmund Andrews, “In Day Of Violence In Iraq, Attacks From All Directions,” New York Times, July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Daniel McGrory, “This Is What The Iraqis Think Of Us, Said The Captain Cradling A Charred Helmet,” The Times (London), July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Remy Ourdan, A Fallouja, les Irakiens crient leur haine face aux soldats americains,” Le Monde, July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Tom Laseter, Grim Signs Of Guerilla War,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 02, 2003, p.1.

27

The Political Media Organ of the Ba‘th party put out the following statement at the end of June: “the Party will target the (Vinnell) corporation and all its associates, making the corporatgion, its headquarters, equipment, management, and associates – regardless of their nationalities – legitimate targets for the resistance…we warn our Arab brothers whether they are soldiers, individuals, experts, or consultants against cooperating with the company, accepting contracts, directly from it or through the army or government of their own countries…” in Al Quds al-Arabi, June 27, 2003, p.1 in FBIS-NESA, June 27, 2003.

28

Colin Freeman, "Officials targeted by Iraqi killers," The Scotsman, July 17, 2003 (accessed on-line).

29

On the sabotage tactics of the insurgents see Michael Gordon, “Iraqi Saboteurs’ Goal: Disrupt The Occupation,” New York Times, June 28, 2003 (accessed on-line); Steve Komarow, “U.S. In A Race To Head Off Guerilla War,” USA Today, July 03, 2003, p.15; Scott Peterson, “Next Challenge In Iraq: Sabotage,” Christian Science Monitor, July 03, 2003 (accessed on-line).

30

See Mike Dorning, “Most Dangerous Time in Iraq,” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 2003, p.1.

31

The literature, particularly in English on Sunni Islamism in Iraq is thin, but see Basim al-‘Azimi, "The Muslim Brotherhood: Genesis and Development," in Faleh Abdul Jabar (ed.), Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq, London: Saqi Publishers, 2002, pp.162-176.

32

At the same time, though, the regime put stringent controls over re-islamization, in particular with respect to the Shi‘is who could not be allowed their overt religious manifestations because these could easily become political anti-regime rallies.

33

The turn to religion for spiritual relief intensified in the early 1990s when socioeconomic conditions began to worsen perceptibly, see Francoise Chipaux, “Un regime renforce par l’embargo,” Le Monde, November 12, 1994, p.1.

34

Al Jazirah Interview with Dr. Usama al-Tikriti, in FBIS-NES, May 14, 2003.

35

Ibid.

36

See David Rohde, “Sunni party pursues moderates in Mosul,” International Herald Tribune, April 24, 2003 (accessed on-line).

37

Mohamad Bazzi, “A New Jihad Vs. America? Iraq Fight Draws Arab Men,” Long Island Newsday, July 20, 2003, (accessed on-line).

38

See Patrick Tyler, "Troops Attacked In Baghdad In Fresh Signs of Resistance," New York Times, June 02, 2003, p.1.

39

Edmund Andrews and Patrick Tyler, “Muslim cleric issues call for jihad against U.S.,” Providence Journal, June 07, 2003, p.A1,6.

40

See “Zaher irakischer Widerstand gegen die USA,” Neue Zurcher Zeitung, July 03, 2003 (accessed on-line).

41

See, inter alia, Washington Post, April 16, 2003, p.33; The Guardian, April 16, 2003, p.1; Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2003, p.1;

42

See Yaroslav Trofimov, “Shiite Clerics In Baghdad Slum Collect, Distribute Stolen Goods,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2003 (accessed-on-line).

43

See Sophie Shihab, “En Irak, les ayatollahs chiites ménagent les forces américaines,” Le Monde, June 17, 2003, (accessed

44

See Charles Clover, “Shia Leaders Feel Heat Of The People’s Anger,” Financial Times, July 02, 2003, p.7.

45

Quoted in Jonathan Steele, “Shia cleric challenges Bush plan for Iraq,” The Guardian, July 01, 2003 (accessed on-line); for further analysis see also Juan Cole, “Informed Comment,” July 01, 2003 at http://www.juancole.com/

46

The best short introduction to the nationalist uprising or insurgency of 1920 is Mark Jacobsen, “Only by the Sword: British Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 1920,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol.2, No.2, August 1991, pp.323-363.

47

Major Eric Nyberg, United States Marine Corps, “Insurgency – The Unsolved Mystery,” accessed at https://www.globasecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/NEN.htm

48

On Al-Da‘wa's operations against the Saddam regime see the detailed study on the organization by Florian Bernhardt, Die schiitisch-islamistiche Bewegung im Irak: Hizb al-Da‘wa al-Islamiya 1958-1992 (The Shi‘i-Islamic Movement in Iraq: The Party of the Islamic Call, 1958-1992), M.A. in History and Social Sciences Faculty, Free University of Berlin, November 2001, pp.60-69.

49

It is unlikely that such a guerrilla war would move into the third stage; I simply do not see the Iraqi insurgents, even if they are unified and cohesive, deciding to constitute a regular force under the noses of the Americans.

50

These issues are addressed extensively in the longer version of the paper.

51

For the U.S. military operations in central Iraq in June 2003 and the reactions of the local populace see Sophie Shihab, "En Irak, les Americains engagent des combats meurtriers," Le Monde, June 13, 2003; "Les Etats Unis face a une "resistance organisée" en Irak," Le Monde, June 13, 2003; Michael Slackman, "U.S. Operation Yields Fury In Central Iraq," Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line); Ilene Prueher, "U.S. Antiguerilla Campaign Draws Iraqi Ire," Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2003; Ellen Barry and Bryan Bender, "US Support in Iraq Fades After Raids," Boston Globe, June 15, 2003, p.1.

52

See James Ridgeway, “Guerillas in the Midst,” The Village Voice, July 29, 2003 (accessed on-line).

53

On the increase in mutual demonization see Scott Wallace, "God, I hate these people, says the sergeant. Some utter the V-word: Vietnam," The Independent, July 20, 2003, (accessed on-line).

54
On growing morale problems of U.S. personnel see Ron Martz, "Fort Stewart-based soldiers fight heat, boredom in Iraq," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 20, 2003 (accessed on-line); "US Soldiers' Conditions in Iraq," British Broadcasting Corporation News, July 21, 2003.