Iraq insurgent groups are many
LACK OF UNITY MAKES GROUPS HARD TO DESTROY
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Here is a small sampling of the insurgent groups that claimed responsibility for attacks on American and Iraqi forces in the past few months:
Supporters of the Sunni People. The Men’s Faith Brigade. The Islamic Anger. Al-Baraa bin Malik Suicide Brigade. The Tawid Lions of Abdullah Ibn al- Zobeir. While some of them, like the Suicide Brigade, claim an affiliation with Al-Qaida and Al-Qaida claims them, others either claim to act alone or under the guidance of another group.
While on Wednesday President Bush promised nothing less than ‘‘complete victory’’ over the Iraqi insurgency, the apparent proliferation of militant groups in Iraq offers perhaps the best explanation of why the insurgency has been so hard to destroy.
The Bush administration has long maintained, and Bush reiterated in his speech Wednesday, that the insurgency comprises three elements: disaffected Sunni Arabs, or ‘‘rejectionists’’; former Saddam Hussein government loyalists; and foreign-born terrorists
In Iraq, Iraqi and American officials say the single most important fact about the insurgency is that it consists not of a few groups but of dozens, possibly as many as 100. And it is not a coherent organization whose members dutifully carry out orders from above, but a far- flung collection of smaller groups that often act on their own or come together for a single attack, officials say.
Highly visible groups like Al- affiliated with Al-Qaida. Qaida, the Ansar al-Sunna Army and the Victorious Army Group appear to act as fronts, the Iraqis and the Americans say, providing money, general direction and expertise to the smaller groups, but often taking responsibility for their attacks.
‘‘The leaders usually don’t have anything to do with details,’’ said Abdul Kareem al-Eniezi, the Iraqi minister for national security. ‘‘Sometimes they will give the smaller groups a target, or a type of target. The groups aren’t connected to each other. They not that organized.’’
Some experts and officials say there are important exceptions. Al-Qaida’s leaders, for instance, are deeply involved in spectacular suicide bombings, the majority of which are still believed to be carried out by non-Iraqi foreigners. They also say some of the smaller groups that claim responsibility for attacks may be largely fictional, made up of a ragtag bunch of fighters hoping to make themselves seem more formidable and numerous than they really are.
But whatever the appearances, American and Iraqi officials agree on the essential structure of the Iraqi insurgency: that it is horizontal as opposed to hierarchical, and ad hoc as opposed to unified. They say this central characteristic is what makes the Iraqi insurgency so difficult to destroy. Attack any single part of it, and the rest carries on largely untouched. It cannot be decapitated, because the insurgency, for the most part, has no head.
Among daily developments, the U.S. command said four American service members died in Iraq on Wednesday, three of them from hostile action and the fourth in a traffic accident. are