The Iraqi insurgency lasted from 2003 until 2011, beginning shortly after the 2003 American invasion deposed longtime leader Saddam Hussein, and lasting until the end of the Iraq War and U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It was followed by a renewed insurgency.
The initial outbreak of violence (the 2003–2006 phase) was triggered by the fall and preceded the establishment of the new Iraqi government by the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF–I), which was led by the U.S. From around 2004 to May 2007, Iraqi insurgents largely focused their attacks on MNF-I troops, but later shifted to targeting the post-invasion Iraqi security forces as well.
The insurgents were composed of a diverse mix of private militias, pro-Saddam Ba'athists, local Iraqis opposed to the MNF–I and/or the post-Saddam Iraqi government, and a number of foreign jihadists. The various insurgent groups fought an asymmetric war of attrition against the MNF–I and the Iraqi government, while also fighting among themselves.
The insurgency was shaped by sectarian tensions in Iraq, particularly between Shia Muslims (~60% of the population) and Sunni Muslims (~35% of the population). By February 2006, the violence escalated into a Shia–Sunni civil war, and for the next two years, the MNF–I and the Iraqi government were locked in intense fighting with various militants, who were also targeting each other based on their sectarian affiliations. Many of the militant attacks in American-controlled territories were directed at the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki. Militancy continued amid post-invasion Iraqi reconstruction efforts, as the federal government tried to establish itself in the country. The civil war and sectarian violence ended in mid-2008, having been quelled by the American troop surge of 2007.
However, after the American withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, a renewed sectarian and anti-government insurgency swept through the country, causing thousands of casualties. Two years later, the violence of the new insurgency escalated into the Second Iraq War, largely triggered by the rise of the Islamic State.
Background
The 2003 invasion of Iraq (20 March – 1 May 2003) began the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein within 26 days of major combat operations. The invasion phase consisted of a conventionally fought war which concluded with the capture of the Iraq capital Baghdad by U.S. forces.
Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 20 March to 15 April 2003. These were the United States (148,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194). Thirty-six other countries were involved in its aftermath. In preparation for the invasion, 100,000 U.S. troops were assembled in Kuwait by 18 February. The United States supplied the majority of the invading forces, but also received support from Kurdish irregulars in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The invasion was preceded by an air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on 20 March 2003. The following day coalition forces launched an incursion into Basra Province from their massing point close to the Iraq-Kuwait border. While the special forces launched an amphibious assault from the Persian Gulf to secure Basra and the surrounding petroleum fields, the main invasion army moved into southern Iraq, occupying the region and engaging in the Battle of Nasiriyah on 23 March. Massive air strikes across the country and against Iraqi command and control threw the defending army into chaos and prevented an effective resistance. On 26 March, the 173rd Airborne Brigade was airdropped near the northern city of Kirkuk, where they joined forces with Kurdish rebels and fought several actions against the Iraqi army to secure the northern part of the country.
The main body of coalition forces continued their drive into the heart of Iraq and met with little resistance. Most of the Iraqi military was quickly defeated and Baghdad was occupied on 9 April. Other operations occurred against pockets of the Iraqi army including the capture and occupation of Kirkuk on 10 April, and the attack and capture of Tikrit on 15 April. Saddam and the central leadership went into hiding as the coalition forces completed the occupation of the country.
On 1 May, an end of major combat operations was declared, ending the invasion stage of the Iraq War and beginning the military occupation period and the Iraqi insurgency against coalition forces.
On 23 May 2003, Iraqi military personnel, police and security services were disbanded per Order 2 of the Coalition Provisional Authority under Administrator Paul Bremer, leaving 400,000 soldiers and officers jobless, providing a ready pool of recruits for Islamist groups and other insurgents that emerged. Furthermore, for 10 months Iraq's borders were left open for anyone to come in without even a visa or a passport.
History
2003–2006: initial insurgency
The Iraqi insurgency of 2003–06 erupted following the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam's rule in April 2003. The armed insurgent opposition to the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government lasted until early 2006, when it deteriorated into a sectarian civil war, the most violent phase of the Iraq War.
Fallujah killings of April 2003
The armed insurgency continued on with the topple of Saddam's regime. The US military met limited resistance in multiple sectors of Central Iraq, Fallujah had avoided most damage from ground attack but began receiving bombardment by the 82nd Airborne who entered Fallujah on April 23rd. 5 days later on April 28th US military opened fire on local protestors claiming to have been provoked, these protestors denied any altercation and communicated that they had been fired upon without reason. 17 people were killed with around 70 injured, two days later the US encountered another protest where shots were fired upon the crowd. US soldiers had been occupying Fallujah for limited time at this point. Soldiers had been found using night vision to harass the citizens of the city, disrupting day to day life without reason.
The protestors had been shouting for their liberation; they had been under occupation by both the US and Iraqi military. Their protests included shouts of ‘God is great! Muhammad is his prophet!’ and ‘No to Saddam! No to the US!’, and while loud and crowded as these protests were, none of them involved violence. This caused difficulty for US military in trying to define when there were threats and when it was just protests, anti-US insurgents used schools, mosques, and other community centers to bait the military into looking anti-Islamic and creating another line of defense against US occupation within Iraq.
Iraqi insurgents used the killings to their advantage, creating Fallujah into a safe space for insurgents. With the US military now depicted in a negative view by the people and insurgents, it allowed for a hotspot of anti-American sentiment without fear of conspirators or pro-US military factions opposing the insurgents. The disproportionate use of force by the US military sent the task of settling and bringing peace to a torn Iraq in the complete opposite direction, causing complete alienation and transforming the American push for liberation into an existential threat against the Iraqi citizens.
The US government and officials were not able to comprehend the mistake that was made with the massacre. With lack of resources and communication, they viewed the insurgents not as true military threats. This warfare can be compared to Vietnam's guerrilla tactics, which is why generals and commanders were slow to realize the damage the Iraqi insurgents were having on US troops and resources. The Fallujah massacre proved the intentions of US forces, not to fight and liberate, but invade and dismantle. The killings of protestors outside a primary school (the Al-Qa'id school) provided potent imagery: an American military force that was so brutal it fired on students, teachers, and parents. By successfully framing the U.S. as the brutal enemy, insurgent leaders turned "fence-sitters" and moderates into a crucial support network. This passive support providing safe houses, logistical information, silence, and funding is the lifeblood of any effective insurgency, enabling militants to melt back into the population and strike repeatedly. 39 Americans were killed and 90 wounded in the during First Battle of Fallujah. About 200 insurgents are believed to have been killed. The number of civilian deaths are not fully known, but are estimated to be at least 600, half of those women and children.
2006–2008: insurgency to civil war
Following the 2003 invasion, the situation in Iraq deteriorated, and by 2007, the intercommunal violence between Iraqi Sunni and Shia factions was described by the National Intelligence Estimate as having elements of a civil war. In a 10 January 2007 address to the American people, President George W. Bush stated that "80% of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles (48 km) of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis." Two polls of Americans conducted in 2006 found that between 65% and 85% believed Iraq was in a civil war; however, a similar poll of Iraqis conducted in 2007 found that 61% did not believe that they were in a civil war.
In October 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi government estimated that more than 370,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million. The estimated number of orphans across Iraq has ranged from 400,000 (according to the Baghdad Provincial Council), to five million (according to Iraq's anti-corruption board). A UN report from 2008 placed the number of orphans at about 870,000. The Red Cross stated in 2009 that Iraq's humanitarian situation remained among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.
According to the Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq was one of the world's top 5 unstable states from 2005 to 2008. A poll of top U.S. foreign policy experts conducted in 2007 showed that over the next 10 years, just 3% of experts believed the U.S. would be able to rebuild Iraq into a "beacon of democracy" and 58% of experts believed that Sunni-Shiite tensions would dramatically increase in the Middle East.
In June 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that "the security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive; however, they remain fragile, reversible and uneven." In July 2008, the audit arm of the U.S. Congress recommended that the U.S. Government should "develop an updated strategy for Iraq that defines U.S. goals and objectives after July 2008 and addresses the long-term goal of achieving an Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself". Steven Simon, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in May 2008 that "the recent short-term gains" had "come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq."
After Iraqi security forces took the lead in security operations on 30 June 2009, Iraq experienced a "dramatic reduction in war-related violence of all types ..., with civilian and military deaths down by 80 to 90 percent compared with the same period in 2008."
2008–2011: low-level insurgency
In 2010, a low point for the al-Qaeda effort in Iraq, car bombings declined to an average of ten a month and multiple-location attacks occurred only two or three times a year.
Militant organizations
The Iraqi insurgency is composed of at least a dozen major organizations and perhaps as many as 40 distinct groups. These groups are subdivided into countless smaller cells. The American Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimated that less than 10% of insurgents are non-Iraqi foreign fighters. According to the Chief of the British General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, speaking in September 2007,
The militants (and I use the word deliberately because not all are insurgents, or terrorists, or criminals; they are a mixture of them all) are well armed – probably with outside help, and probably from Iran. By motivation, essentially, and with the exception of the Al Qaeda in Iraq element who have endeavoured to exploit the situation for their own ends, our opponents are Iraqi Nationalists, and are most concerned with their own needs – jobs, money, security – and the majority are not bad people.
Because of its clandestine nature, the exact composition of the Iraqi insurgency is difficult to determine, but the main groupings are: