IRAQ: It is one month since the Iraqi Interim Government took the reins of power from the US administrator, Paul Bremer. In that time, the security situation has deteriorated alarmingly - as illustrated with great brutality yesterday, writes Tom Clonan
So far this month, about 50 US troops have been killed in action in Iraq with as many as 400 seriously injured. It is reported that almost two-thirds of wounded US troops evacuated to Walter Reed Memorial Hospital in Washington have sustained brain trauma injuries.
Such injuries are consistent with a pattern of attacks which includes suicide car-bombs and improvised explosive devices configured as massive roadside bombs - a common precursor for convoy ambushes in Iraq.
In addition to these attacks, US installations including the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad are coming under sustained daily mortar and rocket attack.
In a worrying development, echoing events in Fallujah earlier this year, US forces are also becoming increasingly involved in set-piece battles with Iraqi insurgents who appear prepared to remain in the field and engage in prolonged firefights with US troops.
Hundreds of Iraqi troops, policemen and civilians have also died in this wave of violence, which is concentrated in the Sunni heartland of Iraq. Amid the anarchy that is presently being sown within the Sunni triangle - and as far north as Kirkuk and Mosul and Basra in the south - can be discerned a distinct strategy and set of tactics which point to the likely origins and identity of the current insurgency.
Insurgent activities over the last week alone encompass the full spectrum of combat operations described thus far.
A suicide car-bomber claimed the lives of several Iraqis and wounded US troops outside their Task Force Olympia base in Mosul last Monday. On the same day, a US soldier of the 1st Armoured Division was killed in a roadside bomb and convoy ambush at Bayji outside of Saddam's home town of Tikrit.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, the Oil and Education ministries, the Green Zone and the US Embassy came under heavy mortar fire. The timing and geographical spread of these attacks suggest a concerted effort co-ordinated by former Iraqi military personnel - in the main Sunni Muslims and former Baathists - whose strategy is to derail US and Iraqi aspirations for democratic elections in early 2005.
Evidence that former Iraqi military personnel - including many former Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard officers - are co-ordinating the current unrest has, in part, been collated by US troops from after-action reports and the debriefing of prisoners captured after engagements with insurgents.
One such exchange, in Ramadi, between US troops of the 4th Infantry Division and Iraqi insurgents on July 22nd, evolved into a full-scale ground offensive lasting several hours.
Unlike the classical "shoot-and-scoot" tactic adopted by resistance groups such as al-Qaeda - typically comprised of ad-hoc groupings of foreign fighters - on this occasion, the insurgents fought and manoeuvred as a coherent military unit.
During this action, the US 4th Division killed 25 guerrillas, wounded 17 and captured 17. The numbers of Iraqi combatants involved suggest a unit of at least platoon or company strength.
Those captured revealed to US intelligence personnel that they had been well trained for operations by officers who conducted briefings, rehearsals and immediate action drills along with orders consistent with conventional international military practice.
Further evidence implicating former Sunni Iraqi military and intelligence personnel as co-ordinators of the current insurgency lies within the campaign of assassination of high-profile figures among Iyad Allawi's administration.
So far, about 10 high-ranking ministers and officials of the Iraqi Interim Government have fallen victim to this campaign.
Many of these high-profile victims such as Musab al Awadi, an interior ministry official killed on Monday, along with the Education Ministry's Director of Cultural Relations, Kamal al Jarrah, killed last month, were gunned down at their home addresses in clinical and precise direct action operations.
Given the nature of these killings and the level of intelligence, planning and logistical support required for their success, many observers conclude that former Iraqi military personnel - including some now serving in the Iraqi security forces - are behind this campaign of assassination.
This suspicion was aroused earlier in the year when the head of the then Iraqi Governing Council, Ezzedine Salim, was assassinated by a car-bomb at the entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad. Many analysts concluded that such an operation could only have been mounted with the assistance of insider information - most likely from a former Baathist or Sunni Muslim seeking to scupper US plans for a transition to democracy and reconstruction of Iraq.
In parallel with these attacks and assassinations, Sunni Muslim extremists including al-Qaeda operatives have stepped up their campaign of hostage-taking.
In the last week alone, 12 foreign nationals have been kidnapped within Iraq including Kenyans, Pakistanis, Jordanians and Egyptians. Perhaps emboldened by the early withdrawal of Filipino forces by the Philippines President, Gloria Arroyo, to secure the release of Angelo de la Cruz recently, these extremist groups are more determined than ever to deter foreign aid and construction workers from entering Iraq and assisting in its reconstruction.
This is a tactic borrowed from Lebanon where, in the 80s and 90s, Shia militants such as Hizbullah sought to achieve psychological terror and propaganda value from the abduction and kidnapping of foreign nationals.
The primary objective of Iraq's Sunni resistance groups is to ensure the failure of the Interim Government's plans for free and democratic elections early next year. If such elections go ahead, the Sunni resistance movement is painfully aware that the Shia majority within Iraq - for decades persecuted by the Sunni minority - will finally achieve autonomy and self-determination.
If Iyad Allawi and the US government fail to provide the security environment necessary for elections, or if they postpones the elections, they risk drawing the Shia community into open revolt and insurgency. For these reasons, the conduct of the counter-insurgency campaign over the coming weeks and months in Iraq will likely determine whether or not a civil war takes place.
Tom Clonan is a retired army officer