Published on Jan 8,
2014
Iraqi insurgency
surged in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. The terror campaigns have since
been engaged by Iraqi, primarily radical Sunni, insurgent groups against the
central government and the warfare between various factions within Iraq. The
events of post U.S. withdrawal violence succeeded the previous insurgency in
Iraq (prior to 18 December 2011), but have showed different patterns, raising
concerns that the surging violence might slide into another civil war. Some
1,000 people were killed across Iraq within the first two months since U.S.
withdrawal.
Sectarian violence
continued in the first half of 2013— at least 56 people died in April when a
Sunni protest in Hawija was interrupted by a government-supported helicopter
raid and a series of violent incidents occurred in May. On May 20, 2013, at
least 95 people died in a wave of car bomb attacks that was preceded by a car
bombing on May 15 that led to 33 deaths; also, on May 18, 76 people were killed
in the Sunni areas of Baghdad. Some experts have stated that Iraq could return
to the brutal sectarian conflict of 2006.
On July 22, 2013, at
least five hundred convicts, most of whom were senior members of al-Qaida who
had received death sentences, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail when comrades
launched a military-style assault to free them. The attack began when a suicide
bomber drove a car packed with explosives into prison gates.James F. Jeffrey,
the United States ambassador in Baghdad when the last American troops existed,
said the assault and resulting escape "will provide seasoned leadership
and a morale boost to Al Qaeda and its allies in both Iraq and Syria ... it is
likely to have an electrifying impact on the Sunni population in Iraq, which
has been sitting on the fence." >Informative Panel Presentation<
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