The 25 August bombings are only part of the picture but an important one. Many mainstream analysts missed the point when they lumped together all the various bombings undertaken that day, as if a single controlling hand were moving all the players in Iraq’s many interwoven militant groups. Even with a more discerning approach, however, it is clear that the coordinated bombings across twelve cities was a major feat of organization, particularly considering the continual attrition being inflicted on the leadership of the local Al-Qaeda in Iraq movement, its affiliates and other Sunni insurgent groups. This points towards a theory that is gaining increasing traction with government intelligence analysts: that something smarter than Al-Qaeda in Iraq and better connected (i.e., genuinely Iraqi-led) is evolving out of the current post-electoral stagnation, US withdrawal and government neglect of the Sunni community. The exact lines of this emerging insurgent leadership cadre are unclear but it has a strong Baathist element and can draw on professionals – former Mukhabarat (intelligence) and military officers. Watch this space for more thoughts on this issue.
Though more cohesive leadership is slowly emerging from within the Sunni insurgency, it should be stressed that most violence in Iraq remains local in nature. Almost half of the mass casualty attacks that occurred during Ramadan were local cells, using whatever tools they could to fight the security forces. Nor were there an unusually high number of mass casualty attacks in the holy month. The 25 August attacks may have given the sense that Ramadan was an especially hard-hit period, but actually it was broadly representative. In the second quarter of 2010, the average number of attempted mass casualty attacks in Iraq was 23 per month; during Ramadan, the twenty attempted attacks actually represented a slight reduction on the average and two-thirds the level of July (34 attacks).
I won’t attempt to underplay the significance of mass casualty attacks – they are devastating to the people involved, they can stoke sectarian and ethnic tensions, and they dissuade investment – but I am not overly concerned by the evolution of “spectacular” attacks such as the series on 25 August. It is unsettling that the security forces cannot preempt such cells, but hardly surprising: it is also a worry that the Sunni insurgents can confidently and repeatedly strike as far south as Basrah on three separate occasions this year, nearly six hundred miles from the nearest major Sunni communities. Even so, the attacks were confined to soft civilian or security force targets and were intended to generate headlines. No-one ever won an insurgency that way.
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