Marc Santora has a good article in the New York Times looking at the ongoing U.S. drawdown in Anbar province. He connects it to this morning's gruesome executions in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood west of Baghdad. And he interviews Ahmed Abu Risha, a key Sunni Awakening leader in Anbar, who says the simmering insurgency in the province isn't trying to reignite sectarian fighting.
"They want to attack for two main reasons," he said. "They target the police because the police have achieved a victory over them. And the second major reason is because they want to keep investors out."
I'll buy the premise that the insurgency lacks a coherent strategy. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia is motivated by a desire for revenge, and also by opportunity: Police officers are outside driving patrols and manning checkpoints, so they present easy targets.
There are also local political tensions in Anbar province fueling the insurgency: One of the victims today, remember, was an official from the Iraqi Islamic Party.
But I question the usefulness of Abu Risha's assessment. I'm not sure "sectarian warfare" was ever an explicit goal of the Iraqi insurgency; it was more a follow-on effect of that insurgency's tactics, and a manifestation of deeper political tensions. Sunni insurgents didn't necessarily targets Shi'ites because they were Shi'ites, but because Shi'ites wielded power in the new Iraq. That led to reprisal attacks on Sunnis, and the "cycle of violence" began.
Maybe the Anbar insurgency isn't trying to restart sectarian warfare. That doesn't mean it won't happen.
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Categories: Iraq, Regional News, War and Terrorism, War in Iraq
Tags: Ahmed Abu Risha, Anbar province, Awakening militias, insurgency, Iraqi Islamic Party
2 Comments
Gregg,
I think you're only half right here. Nationalist Sunni insurgents tended to see Shia as a threat because they had assumed power (at the expense of the Sunnis) in Iraq. But, Al Qa'ida in Iraq and other jihadist entities did in fact attack Shia because they of their sect, not position in Iraq. Remember Zarqawi getting rebuked by AQ Central for espousing his desire to start a civil war? And it was exactly those high-profile attacks against Shia civilians and symbols (like the assassination of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, numerous attacks against Ashura pilgrims, and of course the 2006 attack on the Askari mosque) that led to the cycle of sectarian violence escalating.
You are correct. But islamic world is being misleaded.There are lot of misconceptions about islam
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