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Security in Iraq
A return to the bad old days?
Aug 13th 2009 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
A worrying surge in bombings as the Americans plot their departure
CHAIRMAN MAO laid down the rules for modern guerrilla warfare during the Chinese civil war. “When the
enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue,” he
instructed. Iraqi insurgents seem to be following his advice all too closely. During the American “surge” two
years ago they melted away. After the surge peaked they renewed their attacks. And barely a month after
Iraqi troops took control of the main towns from the slowly departing Americans, blood is once again gushing
down the boulevards.
More than 100 civilians were killed in a four-day period this week and hundreds wounded. Two lorries packed
with several thousand pounds of high-grade explosives levelled most of a settlement on the edge of Mosul in
northern Iraq. Residents were sleeping on their roofs to escape the summer heat when their houses collapsed
beneath them. Meanwhile, bombs in Baghdad targeted day-labourers and pilgrims. Altogether this has been
the worst spasm of violence in recent memory. Although the attacks were all confined to the capital and the
north, while the rest of the country remained relatively calm, they demonstrated a degree of sophistication
that American officials thought the insurgents could no longer muster. The truck bombings are reminiscent of
the spectacular attacks staged during the early years of the American occupation.
Nobody has claimed responsibility, but there is little doubt that groups like al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, as the
Iraqi wing of the jihadist movement calls itself, are at work in Mosul. They have largely been on the retreat
since the surge started in 2007. Many of their leaders have been killed or captured. They have also lost
popular support—but not their tactical cunning.
With the lorry bombs, which killed 35 people, the insurgents achieved several objectives at once. They have
forced the already stretched Iraqi army into protecting an even greater area by unexpectedly switching from
city attacks to hitting a semi-rural place. They have knocked public confidence in the Iraqi government’s
capacity to maintain security. And lastly the insurgents are returning to their most successful ploy: baiting an
ethnic community until it is so fed up that it hits back, thereby triggering further violence.
Previously the insurgents focused on the Shia. But this group is increasingly turning the other cheek. “Let
them kill us,” said Sheikh Khudair al-Allawi, the imam of a mosque bombed recently. “It’s a waste of their
time.” The insurgents have taken note, and are switching their attention to the Kurds instead. The bombed
houses outside Mosul were under the protection of the armed Kurdish fighters of the peshmerga. They have
so far stayed out of sectarian fighting. But for how much longer? Political control of the area around Mosul,
and the oil beneath it, is in dispute. Kurds and Sunni Arabs both want it, with no compromise in sight. The
insurgents are trying to whip up a civil war again, and some are taking the bait. In the hours after the lorry
bombing, Sunni provincial lawmakers demanded the expulsion of the peshmerga for being ineffective.
The renewed violence is a blow for the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. Lacking charisma or a record of
delivering much-needed schools and hospitals, he has built his strategy for getting re-elected in national polls
next January on the supposed gains in security for war-weary Iraqis. Within hours of the lorry bombings he
appeared on national television to reassure them, but not everyone is convinced.
The Americans too are trying to sound positive. But more violence could jeopardise their carefully-laid
withdrawal plans. For the moment, those are still on course. Nationwide attacks are now averaging 100 per
week, compared with 200 last year. But there is a danger that the failure to find an Arab-Kurdish solution for
the disputed land will give the insurgents a perpetual casus belli.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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